{"id":6640,"date":"2014-11-24T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=6640"},"modified":"2014-11-20T10:55:41","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T15:55:41","slug":"tips-on-crape-myrtles-in-fall-and-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2014\/11\/24\/tips-on-crape-myrtles-in-fall-and-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips On Crape Myrtles In Fall And Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Poor<\/a>

Poor Pruning of Crape Myrtles<\/p><\/div>\n

\""Crape<\/a>

“Crape Murder” In Early February<\/p><\/div>\n

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Hardy cultivars of\u00a0crape myrtles are best left alone in the fall. Light pruning to remove\u00a0a broken branch or the\u00a0seed capsules is ok, but major pruning should\u00a0wait until early spring.\u00a0\u00a0“Crape murder” is a\u00a0common practice in the Southeast U.S.\u00a0and is not recommended\u00a0any time or place. It involves lopping down\u00a0tree and shrub crape myrtles to 5-6 feet height. The reason often cited by professional landscapers is that retail merchants want customers to\u00a0see their signage.<\/p>\n

The severe 2013-14 winter caught many landscape companies pruning in January and February. The\u00a0aftermath was that many crape myrtles died\u00a0to the ground. Fortunately, most did sucker back up and flower in summer (about 4-6 weeks later than normal). Plants had to be pruned to redevelop their branching habit.<\/p>\n

If you must dig one up\u00a0to transplant, wait until mid-March or later. Fall planting can be risky. Crape myrtles are cheap to replace or to start over.\u00a0Often a fall or winter transplanted crape myrtle starts off weak, particularly if the previous winter weather\u00a0has been\u00a0severe.<\/p>\n

Andrew Bunting, plant curator at the Scott Arboretum (campus of Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA) lists these cultivars that came through the winter 2013-4 with virtually no damage:<\/p>\n

fauriei ‘Fantasy’
\nfauriei ‘Townhouse’
\nindica ‘Carolina Beauty’
\nindica \u2018Pink Velour\u2019
\n‘Acoma’
\n‘Lipan’
\n‘Muskogee’
\n‘Natchez’
\n‘Osage’
\n‘Tuscarora’
\n‘Tuskegee’<\/p>\n

In northeastern cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington,\u00a0and Baltimore, crape myrtles are rated as hardy perennials and not woody shrubs or trees. Following a severe winter, expect some to dieback to the ground.\u00a0Some \u00a0of the hardiest forms originate from the U.S. National Arboretum. If you desire to trial only\u00a03 or 4 cultivars, ‘Natchez’ and \u2018Muskogee\u2019 (tree forms) and ‘Acoma’ and ‘Osage’ (shrub forms) are\u00a0most reliable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  Hardy cultivars of\u00a0crape myrtles are best left alone in the fall. Light pruning to remove\u00a0a broken branch or the\u00a0seed capsules is ok, but major pruning should\u00a0wait until early spring.\u00a0\u00a0“Crape murder” is a\u00a0common practice in the Southeast U.S.\u00a0and is not recommended\u00a0any time or place. It involves lopping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[914,645,6,601,630,706,646,7,850,455,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640"}],"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=6640"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7031,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6640\/revisions\/7031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}