I’m awaiting my Crepe Myrtle to re-grow. In 2007 the April 17th-ish freeze killed back all the then Crepe Myrtle spring growth. It was rather far along with nice little leaves showing … then black goo from the two days of freezing temps. It did put out some puny leaves after that, eventually, that’s all.
Next year it had nice leaves, that’s all.
This year (2009) it was putting out little buds to open into leaves and then blam, an early April freeze, just barely, again. But this year the freeze was lesser than the 2007 April freeze by far and wide with the Crepe Myrtle very early into it’s growth for 2009, and noticeably affected just barely, but within a few days it was just brown dried up stuff where the leaf buds were. That nice new growth starting cut off. 🙁
I’ve looked online and found info from 2007 about freeze damage, and the basic consensus is to leave the poor trees alone, and when another warm spell of a few days lasts it’ll put out new growth again.
Thing is I’m hoping for more than growth, but nice leaves and actual blooms for once. I supposed it’s a young Crepe Myrtle and perhaps hasn’t liked where it is, in the South with the drought, and in the front with not full sunlight all day. It’s where the landscaper we hired years ago had put a Crepe Myrtle on our landscape plans, and we put it in finally a few years ago. It’s supposed to get lilac color blooms. We’ve had plenty of water the last few weeks, and that’s a plus, hope the Crepe Myrtle see it that way.
There are a few suckers coming up that I need to get rid of, and perhaps I could do a little tiny shape pruning, other than that, there’s not much I can do. I sure won’t top it off, no way. That’s a very mean thing to do to a Crepe Myrtle and I bet 75% of the Crepe Myrtles I see around the NE GA area are topped off every year. Horrid.