How pretty...but I see it is only hardy to zone 7a. I thought there was a difference in the hardiness of the many different varieties. The site below shows it to be hardier though. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Fast Growing Trees Nursery

How much direct sun does your Muskogee Crape Myrtle receive? My daughter planted two CMs this spring, one dwarf on the southwest corner of her house. If seems to receive from 9am to sunset sun. and it is now covered with blooms. On the same day she also planted a more upright 8 to 10 foot potential growing Cm. Only this one she planted on a recessed corner which half of it receives shade from the house until about 12 noon, and the other half of it receives nearly full day sun. This CM did not even have noticable flower buds by the time her little dwarf globe shaped CM burst forth in bloom. It took about three weeks longer before bloom buds could be seen on her taller cm shrub, and even now only a few of those buds have bloomed. With established CMs its all about how much sun esposure they have.

Do you have Eragrostis elliottii? I have some potted for trade but it would have to be by mail.

I just hate seeing crape murder, especially on the larger varieties of CM's. I just can't bring myself to tell my neighbors that they've got it all wrong since they think their landscape guy hung the moon and all. Sadly, they're so ruined from years of this that they'd have to be cut down to stumps and allowed to regrow to look decent again. I rail against the practice whenever possible though. A couple of years ago I was talking to another neighbor that has a beautiful 20-25' Natchez. She thought maybe it needed to be topped since that's what some neighbors were doing. I did manage to talk her out of that, at least for now, thankfully!