{"id":3408,"date":"2012-08-25T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T16:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=3408"},"modified":"2012-08-16T18:37:31","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T22:37:31","slug":"winter-hardiness-of-crape-myrtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2012\/08\/25\/winter-hardiness-of-crape-myrtles\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Hardiness of Crape Myrtles"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3491\" style=\"width: 208px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_0399.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3491\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3491 \" title=\"DSC_0399\" src=\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_0399-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_0399-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/DSC_0399-678x1024.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3491\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Awesome bark on Lagerstroemia fauriei<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If you garden in USDA zone 6, certain crape myrtle cultivars\u00a0are rated as reliably winter hardy\u00a0perennials. Most dependable are the U.S. National Arboretum cultivars released\u00a0starting in the\u00a01980&#8217;s to date. Each one\u00a0is named for an Indian tribe.\u00a0Most of the National Arboretum\u00a0cultivars are selected for cold hardiness as well as for disease and insect resistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Among the cold hardiest\u00a0(zone 6-b) are the\u00a0popular\u00a0&#8216; Natchez&#8217;\u00a0 (26-28 feet\/ white flowering tree form). This should be the first\u00a0crape myrtle to\u00a0trial in your\u00a0landscape. Also worth trying are &#8216;Acoma&#8217; (5-10 feet\/white flowering), &#8216;Apalachee&#8217; (11-16 feet\/light lavender), &#8216;Hopi&#8217; (8-10 feet\/medium pink),\u00a0&#8216;Sioux&#8217; (10-16 feet\/dark pink), &#8216;Tonto&#8217; (8-10 feet\/maroon red flowers), &#8216;Tuscarora&#8217; (26 feet\/dark pink),\u00a0and &#8216;Pocomoke&#8217; (3-5 feet\/dark pink flowers).<\/p>\n<p>Plant crape myrtles in\u00a0well-drained soil\u00a0and in full day sunlight. During the initial year of planting, water\u00a0and mulch the\u00a0crape myrtle\u00a0when natural rainfall falls short.\u00a0Fertilize\u00a0with 10-10-10 fertilizer or equivalent following spring planting and repeat\u00a0every spring hereafter.<\/p>\n<p>Living in zone 6, expect that out of every three winters will kill crape myrtle(s) to the ground. To prevent winter injury, never prune a crape myrtle in the fall or early winter. The pruning cuts often do not heal over and the wood\u00a0may be killed.\u00a0\u00a0Sudden spring cold snaps may also injure the growth buds. Wait until mid-spring to evaluate the harshness of the past winter before acting.<\/p>\n<p>The rootsystem is very hardy and will push up new shoots in the spring.\u00a0Crape myrtle\u00a0blooms on new wood,\u00a0and summer flowering is not lost. Yes, your winter injured crape myrtle\u00a0may be smaller, but\u00a0it\u00a0often\u00a0survives and flowers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you garden in USDA zone 6, certain crape myrtle cultivars\u00a0are rated as reliably winter hardy\u00a0perennials. Most dependable are the U.S. National Arboretum cultivars released\u00a0starting in the\u00a01980&#8217;s to date. Each one\u00a0is named for an Indian tribe.\u00a0Most of the National Arboretum\u00a0cultivars are selected for cold hardiness as well as for disease and insect resistance.\u00a0 Among the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,398,299,440,914,645,806,774,630,706,455],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3408"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3520,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions\/3520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}