Confounding Crape Myrtle (half sprouting, half not)
Curious what you think about half of the stems on this crape myrtle sprouting, and half not.
This plant was purchased as a 3-gallon variety and potted, as you see it, late last summer. I chose this particular plant because of the 4 stems having the appearance of 4 distinct/separate "trees" when viewed in a miniature setting. Aside from bottom-up root pruning, I made no other alterations to the root ball. In other words, I did not separate the 4 stems - they were already arranged/composed to my liking.
I did not attempt to shape/prune the plant when planted; I decided to wait to do all initial pruning at the same time I pruned my other ground-planted crape myrtles, which I did on February 9th this year. All 4 stems appeared equally healthy throughout last summer, through the fall and into early winter - all were equally leafy and each stem bloomed together as I would have expected.
But I'm confounded that only stems #1 and #2 are sprouting. There is still not a sign of any sprouts on stems #3 and #4. Given that I never separated the stems, the entire root ball received the same treatment through the winter (same watering, etc.). What's got me really confused is that to the touch and feel, stems #3 and #4 are totally pliable when gently bending - no cracking and no breaking. Just to be sure they weren't dead, I pruned those stems again 4 or 5 days ago to see what the wood looked like, I cut each branch/twig back ~3/4" to 1" and every cut revealed green wood. To rephrase that, stems #3 and #4 are not dry wood.
Stems #1 and #2 are behaving exactly as I would expect by sprouting right on time along with every crape myrtle in my region.
Your thoughts?
Comments (9)
4 years ago- 4 years ago
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Crape Myrtle Experts needed!!
Comments (7)Angmoyer, One of the easiest ways to provide your photo to be embedded into a post is to upload it onto an image hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, etc. That should be pretty straight forward, and the individual sites will give instructions on how to get your photos uploaded to their site when you sign up. Once your picture has been uploaded, find its web address by right clicking on the image and copying the image location. Some sites may even provide your image's address in a text box below the photo for your convenience. Let's say, as an example, that the address of the picture you want to post is http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg To embed the picture into a post, use the command: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg"> If your picture is too large to fit nicely into the text page, you can add a width attribute. The command with the width attribute would looks something like: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg" width=600> Note that I had to use special characters to get the commands above to show up here without turning into pictures, but you can use them as shown (with the correct image web address, of course). And, BTW, you'll probably have better luck finding info on crape myrtles (Google searches, etc) if you spell crape with an a instead of an e. Almost all botanical gardens, university websites, and the Crape Myrtle Society spell it with an a....See MoreWhy is my crape/crepe myrtle have pink blooms & white blooms?
Comments (19)Definately do cut out at the base, all trunks in your CM that are blooming pink. Then be certain to pinch off any new growth that the roots of those cut off branches try to keep growing. If you keep the new growth pinched off then only those roots should suffer,and the white blooming branches should begin to experience an advantage, which helps them to prosper more. Unless it is just the lighting cast on the day you took that photo of the pink blooms, the pink blooming trunks might be a Biloxi Crape Myrtle. Those bubblegum pink blooms, in my opinion are a much nicer sight than some of the more pale easily washed out pinks that some CMs produce. Anyway I only tell you this to let your know that if you do like that particular pink color and would like to have a CM growing someplace else with that color, Than simply order or find at some local nursery a Biloxi Crape Myrtle that is already blooming and that you can confirm it really is a Biloxi Crape Myrtle....See MoreMost tree like Lagerstroemia (Crape Myrtle) for Zone 6?
Comments (13)If it can get to -20* in northwest AR and kill the crapes to the ground, I wouldn't get my hopes up too high in z6, sorry Toronado! Maybe as a potted specimen. Otherwise as much winter protection as you can spare would be the only way. Have you thought about taking a cutting of the one you see in the neighborhood? I would think that would be your best bet. It has clearly taken a z6 beating numerous times and survived. Crapes are about the toughest plants around here I have experienced. Maybe take a few cuttings to make sure you can get them to root. I dug a couple crapes out of my front bed that had only been there 1 year and I have suckers EVERYWHERE coming up from the severed roots. 1 I let grow and it shot up over 2' and flowered profusely. Good luck! John...See Moredwarf crape myrtle
Comments (3)I have some some dwarf and semi-dwarf Crapes,..no problems. But have not had success with the 'mini-dwarfs'...very disappointing. But, given that you say the bark is green, they should be all regrown by now. Some of mine looked dead but now completely recuperated. I know you are a zone lower, so give it some time. (Was ready to replace a Dynamite till 2 weeks ago!)...See More- 4 years agolast modified: 4 years ago
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Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis