Angie, Well at least manslaughter is not as serious as murder. Seriously, though, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do and I don't think y'all have harmed the crape myrtle at all. I would go ahead and cut out the dead trunk. I don't know that I'd say y'all went too far in your efforts to improve the health of your crape myrtle. It looks pretty good right now. The population of crape myrtle aphids usually peaks in late July and early August. Sometimes when the infestation is especially heavy, the lady bugs do have a hard time keeping up with all the aphids. I am glad you didn't spray anything that would hurt the lady bugs because they are incredibly beneficial. In the future, you can simply knock the apids off the plants with a sharp stream of water at high pressure. (You can use a hose nozzle or watering wand that has a high-pressure feature to do this. On my watering wand, there is a position called 'jet' that sprays a high-pressure stream of water when the want is set to that feature.) Sometimes you have to do it once or twice a day until you've done it enough to discourage them enough that they just move on. The honeydew from the aphids is not a problem in and off itself, but it can serve as a host for a black mold called sooty mold. It is unsightly and can cause defoliation when it is heavy, but the overall health of the tree is not harmed and new leaves will come out to replace any that fall off because of the sooty mold. There are several ways to deal with the aphids in the future so that you don't have a recurring issue with them every year. First, you can spray your crape myrtle with dormant oil during the dormant season in order to kill overwintering aphids. Then, in spring, check the undersides of your crape myrtle leaves in spring and spray them with insecticidal soap as soon as you notice aphids. If you can nip their population in the bud early, you usually can avoid having a major infestation of them. Having said that, since crape myrtle aphids only feed on crape myrtles, there always will be a population of them in your general area every summer, so keep checking the plants weekly and either hose off the aphids or use insecticidal soap on the undersides of the leaves. Once it is hot, though, you don't want to spray insecticidal soap on foliage because it can burn foliage of some plants in hot weather. Another alternative would be to buy and release lady bugs at the first sign of aphids on the plants in the spring. Lady bugs are kind of random and sometimes don't show up until the aphid population is huge. Sometimes I'll see them focusing on a specific pest on a specific type of plant when I'd rather have them on some other kind of plant eating its pests, but lady bugs don't take orders from humans. They don't even take requests. By buying them and releasing them on the crape myrtles when you see the aphid population appearing, you're ensuring the lady bugs are there while the population of aphids is small and more easy to wipe out. I am sure there are some broad-spectrum insecticides that would target the aphids, but I don't use broad-spectrum insecticides because they will kill all the beneficial insects too, so I am hoping you do not choose to spray with a broad-spectrum insecticide. About 97% of the insects we have in our yards and gardens are beneficial, and it would be a shame to kill them while trying to kill the 3% that are harmful. The aphid population will start dropping naturally in early to mid-August which is not that far away, so I'd just try to be patient and wait it out. I'm going to link my favorite Crape Myrtle website. It has great info in its FAQ and in its section on basic Crape Myrtle care. It also features a lot of great photos. If you're a lover of Crape Myrtles and you're ever traveling down to Dallas or points southward during Crape Myrtle season, it is well worth your while to visit McKinney for an hour or two just to see the incredible array of crape myrtles grown there. Whenever we are near McKinney in crape myrtle season, I make up an excuse to get off the highway and stop there just so we can enjoy the crape myrtles that are planted simply all over the place in McKinney. Sometimes when a plant has been topped (and this will sound drastic, but the CMs can survive it), the best way to restore its shape is to cut it back to the ground while it is dormant in winter or early spring. Then it will grow back in the shape that is natural for it. I did that with the 30-year-old crape myrtle on our property in Fort Worth because it appeared it had been topped repeatedly before we bought our house there. It regrew beautifully and the only pruning I ever had to do after that was just to remove the dead seedheads, damaged branches, branches that rubbed on one another, etc. I agree with your father-in-law that there's not much you can do to a crape myrtle that will permanently harm it. They are incredibly resilient plants. They fall in a category of great landscape plants that won't die and that you cannot kill easily (if at all). Well, extreme and exceptional drought did kill some crape myrtles in 2011, but I assume that is because they were not watered or not watered enough. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Crape Myrtle Trails

It isn't caused by woolly aphids, it is a froth protecting the nymphs (juvenile) of the spittle bug (also called froghoppers). They are not really of any great concern unless the tree is particulary young. Cheers, Dee.

It is difficult to say much about the trees using only flower colors; there may be four common cultivars with pink flowers sold in your area, for example. A tendency to mildew, length of bloom, etc. could vary between the pinks, depending upon the cultivar. It sounds as if you are planning many plantings, based upon the number of threads. You will probably find the final result more pleasing if you make your choices with much consideration for how the different plant choices will interact with each other. A design should be for the whole yard, instead of simply this plant here, that plant there. A range of things should be weighed, including flower color(s) and period of bloom, complimentary and contrasting foliage combinations, plants with structural interest, and change, to name just a few. I have seen your desire for year-round interest using evergreens, but it can be beneficial to have some plants lose their leaves when the plant behind might be going into a peak season of flowers or colorful berries. Differing focal points throughout the year add interest to a landscape.

Your crepe myrtle has aphids, the black stuff is sooty mold from the honeydew they leave behind, this just makes it ulgy, it won't kill it. Look up aphids on crepe myrtle for more info. Just about anyone that grows crepe myrtles have will have aphids.