Miracle gro kills transplants.

I know this sounds like a bold accusation but there is an alarming number of suspicious deaths post miracle gro to put 2 and 2 together.

Really? Oh well, I suppose I wont use the miracle grow quick start again. I thought this was supposed to make stuff easier to transplant. Is there anything I can do?

Leave it alone and let the soil dry out. The only fertilizer my crapes ever get is when I fertilize the lawn. Incidentially, my methods are organic. Crapes like benign neglect.

Transplanting is a stress to the plants. /the last thing in the world they need at that time is fertilizer. Water and mulch properly.

BTW.... crepe myrtle in 6b?

Will a crepe not grow in 6b? I'm in Nashville and we see crepes all over the place.

The soil is still damp this morning and the leaves are still wilted. So as the soil drys will it come back? Do you think this thing is a goner?

Was your plant container grown or field grown?

espressogeek,

My neighbor and I had a conversation this past weekend about the crepe myrtle in her yard that eeps sending out shoots under my wooden fence and through the middle of my brick patio. We decided that after the big bomb drops there will be three things left alive on this planet: cockroaches, rats and crepe myrtles.

I suspect your crepe got too much water and fertilizer and you also went to way too much trouble to give it a decent hole; in other words you were way too kind to it.

Neglect it for a week and it will probably be much happier.

Crepe myrtles, as it would appear tend to have better performance in the warmest and most humid coastal areas in my unscientific observations. The frost did a number on these. It's may 30 and the crepe myrtles here in my area of NE georgia don't have sustantial green foliage. Most are suckering at the base. We had a late freeze easter. I don't see summer blooms on crepe myrtles here like I did in Florida freeze or no freeze. Same with the fall color believe it or not. And the fact that 90% of crepe myrtles are butchered every spring means that 90% of crepe myrtles you come across are not very attractive after time. The attractive single stemmed plants with smooth bark and straight central leaders don't seem to have any distribution outside of FL. And their invasive potential is starting to rear it's ugly head at us. Never the less, crepe myrtles will be sold in places they are marginal because money makes the world go round.

I am also having trouble with 2 of my 3 CM's. We have lived in our newly built/landscaped house for a year and a half. One is full of beautiful white blooms while the others are simply filled with beautiful green leaves. Why would one bloom so well and the others not? All are in full sun, however the two I am having trouble with are facing East and the other is on the South side of the house. There is a chance that the one on the S side is getting more sun than the others but I wouldnt think it was enough to make the difference I see.

Any ideas on why these 2 wont bloom?

Tdstephens, frequently, that can be a result of too much nitrogen, which promotes leaves at the expense of blooms. Did you fertilize your lawn on the E side of the house, more recently, or more heavily, than on the S side? Did you feed the CMs, and if so, with what, and how heavily, and was it all 3 the same?

Did the one blooming have more shelter over the freeze over Easter weekend, although that was long enough ago to be much less likely? Have you had any Japanese beetles as yet - they ate almost all the blossoms off my early white CM last year - but if that's the case, you should see a few blossoms on the panicles.

You don't say what cultivars these are - it's also possible that the one blooming does so at an earlier age than the others. And, it is possible that your thought is correct, the non-blooming 2 are getting too much shade for good blloms. If that's the case, then moving them should solve the problem.

I wanted to thank everyone for helping me out with the CM problem. The situation has resolved itself. We dripped water directly at the base of the plant, nightly, for several weeks. A few weeks ago it finally quit drooping during the day. Now I water it once a week and it has not drooped even on the hottest of days.

I think I dug the hole to deep. When I watered the water just ran past the tight compact root ball and drained into the deeper hole where the clay stopped it about 12" past the root ball. The CM appears to have finally put out enough roots to get water that lays down there ( this is all theory ) and all is good.

Glad to hear that all is well.

They are tough as nails once they get going in the heat.