Here is my picture, Jack Loggins. I was 66 years old as of 9/19/09. I don't take any medicine. I am active in my gardening. I grow fruits and vegetables organically and promote healthy eating and living. I have just started blogging and am very interested in your comments about the blog, crape myrtles and health.
Crape Myrtles easily grow in the southern parts of the United States. Most southerners know of this plant. It blooms from about June 15th until frost. The colors range from white to pink to rosy pink to light red to dark red and bright red to lavender and including dark purple. Most people know the shrub or small tree as growing from 10 to 15 feet, but different varieties grow from 18 inches to 40 feet, mature height.Crape Myrtles
Crape myrtles can be grown in the middle of the yard, park, or common area as a display plant. Or, grow the plant as a single tree for shade and beauty. More recently, people are growing them in hanging baskets and as a border around flower beds, homes, and businesses. There is one big limitation. They do need lots of sun to bloom gorgeously.
Here are some examplesCrape myrtles are more than just flowers. Some also have beautiful fall foliage. Some have exfoilating bark and different colors of barks.
Cities grow them in parks and in medians. State highway departments grow them along the roadside, in rest areas, and create large displays in highway interchanges and in center medians. They can be used as an attenuating device. In the case of an accident the energy from the car is absorbed by the breaking of the branches. The crape myrtle is very reselient. It will grow back in a few months or years and ready to provide protection again.
How do I know all this? I have been growing crape myrtles for 50 years. I worked in a plant nursery for about 10 years when I was going to college. I worked as a traffic engineer for about 35 years, but I continued to grow crape myrtles in my yard. I move yard plants when they get too big or I want a new look. I learned when you move crape myrtles, the roots come up and grow. I later decided to use that technique to propogate crape myrtles.
In 1995, I retired from working for cities and counties as a traffic engineer. I found 2.6 acres of land in the middle of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. I always wanted to build a house. My dad was a carpenter and I guess I got some of his genes. I built 2 houses. One for my daughter and her family and one for my wife and myself. I ended up with 1.3 acres of which about 1 acre is a garden-nursery. I have grown hundreds of trees from seeds. I created a forest. More about that later.
I continued to learn about propogating crape myrtles. I learned you can take a pencil thickness 6" cutting from the previous years growth and plant in the ground in the winter and with a little luck; one year later you can have a 12 to 30" crape myrtle. I started doing this in rows and started selling on Ebay as bare-root plants in 2006. Then I learned you can take 6-18" cuttings and do the same thing in the summer though the use of a misting chamber. If you want to be an excited gardener. You have to get one of these things. A misting chamber will allow you to grow many plants from seeds and cuttings that was virtually impossible previously. I had heard about people growing by just cutting a limb off of a crape myrtle and red tip photenia and sticking in the ground. I would try it and it never worked. But, with a misting chamber and some special techniques, propogating can be lots of fun.
In 2008, I started selling live potted plants. I have over 50 varieties. If you are interested in seeing the wide variety of plants go to my website: http://www.logginsgardens.com/ .
After established, crape myrtles are very drought tolerant. They have their own internal mechanism that slows down their growth and blooming in dry weather and then they come back to life in a short time after a good rain or irrigation. One interesting thing about crape myrtles. You can fertilize them to speed up their growth, but they may almost quit blooming. Obviously, if you want to fertilize, use a fertilize with a large middle number. The middle number is phosphorous. Anyways, if your soil grows other plants, weeds, and grass well, you don't need to fertilize to grow crape myrtles. If you plant in a pot, you would want to get something like Miracle Grow potting soil which has some fertilize added. It is time released and mixed at a rate not to burn your plants.
More pictures! This is a median with a crape myrtle in it.
This is a Natchez white crape myrtle. It's leaves change color in the fall.
