Crape myrtle

This peak crape myrtle season and I would like to share a few tips about choosing new Crapes. We frequently get complaints about some of the older varieties with mildew problems. This a disease related to mildew on roses and causes the foliage to get a white powdery coating. Depending it cam be annoying or bad enough that the Crape myrtle doesn’t bloom well.

This is a fifteen year old Zuni

There has never been a good solution for mildew on Crape Myrtle, but now there is something you can do to not have the problem on new plants.

A number of years ago there were some breeding of crape myrtles going on in the true south of the US. It primarily involved crossing faureri and indica species. The faureri genes brought mildew resistance and the indica larger flowers and better colors.

Together, with this breeding, a lot of additional information about sizes and growth patterns became available.

Today ask about what size you want and then choose the color from varieties that grow to the right size.

Varieties we recommend include:

Tall  these grow 20-25’

Dynamite and Red Rocket – bright red
Muskogee – light lavender pink
Tuscarora – bright coral red
Natchez – white

Mid sized these grow 12-15’ +

Hopi –medium Pink
Centennial Spirit – watermelon red

Small these grow 8–10 ft +Pecos – medium PinkZuni – deep lavender

These are all good to very good at resisting mildew problems. They all come as multi trunked trees ( the way I generally like them) or as single trunked trees.

Inn addition there are some new mini varieties that are part of the dazzler series. These grow in the 4-5’ range as a bushy plant. We have Cherry Dazzle in stock which is  cherry red with distinctive reddish new growth.

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