Crape Myrtle
Lagerstroemia indica (LYTHRACEAE)
Planting and Growing Crape Myrtle
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow crape myrtle in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- Flowers, foliage, fruit clusters, and seeds of crape myrtle
- Growing conditions for crape myrtle
- When and where to plant crape myrtle
- How to plant crape myrtle
- How to shape, prune and control growth of crape myrtle
- Watering, fertilizing, and care of crape myrtle
- Landscape uses of crape myrtle
- Pest and disease control for crape myrtle
Growing Crape Myrtle
Many cultivars of medium- to slow-growing, sprawling, branching, dense, deciduous shrubby trees, to 20 ft. (6 m) tall and wide, and often with multiple trunks, with shiny, bronze turning deep green, oval, pointed leaves, to 3 in. (75 mm) long, turning orange, red in autumn, and with flaking, brown, gray bark.
Crape myrtle evolved on the Indian subcontinent, became native to Korea, eastern Russia, and China, and are grown today in many other locales around the world for their showy summer flower displays.
Genetic dwarf, bush, and standard forms available, including Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba’, ‘Centennial’, ‘Dixie’, ‘Dwarf Pink’, ‘Glendora White’, ‘Peppermint Lace’, ‘Petite Snow’, ‘Prairie Lace’, and ‘Seminole’.
Crape Myrtle Planting and Care Guide
Flowers and Fruit
Many showy, fragrant, red, rose, pink, purple, white, ruffled flowers, to 1-1/2-in. (38-mm) wide, in spring, borne in spikelike, pyramid-shaped clusters, 6–12 in. (15–30 cm) long, form brown, round fruit, to 1/3-in. (8-mm) wide on woody stems in grapelike clusters that dry and persist through winter, holding many hard-shelled seeds.
Best Climates
U.S.D.A. Plant Hardiness Zones 7–10. Best in mild-winter climates.
Soil Type and Fertility
Damp, well-drained soil. Fertility: Average. 6.5–7.5 pH.
Where and How to Plant
Full sun. Space 5–30 ft. (1.5–9 m) apart, depending on cultivar.
Proper Care
Easy. Keep damp; allow soil surface to dry between waterings until established. Fertilize sparingly. Prune in winter. Propagate by cuttings, seed.
Crape myrtle infested with host-specific Crape Myrtle Aphid require immediate treatment to kill the pest and stop fungal infections. Spray entire foliage, trunks, and branches with insecticidal soap effective on aphids as a listed pest; apply to twigs, leaf tops and undersides. Repeat at weekly intervals until health is restored.
About This Species
Good choice for accents, backgrounds, containers, paths in coastal, cottage, small-space gardens. Deer resistant. Powdery mildew and Crape Myrtle Aphid susceptible.