Your light green leafed ones have been allowed to dry out.

You can water them well and consistantly and then once they green up good again, you can feed them with a non burning slow release like Osmokote. The only other way I know to save them is to cut them down to 3 inch or shorter stumps. dig up the rootball and plant them into well draining moisture retentive soil in pots large enough to be about one - two inches wider than the rootball.

Pour 5 gallons of water through the pots every three days or when the top inch of soil in the pots is dry. Keep feeding the CMs with a good quality slow release fertilizer to replenish what gets washed away by all the watering. If the root balls that you pot up are viable, they should send up new shoots which will be your new trunks. Let them grow and harden off before you prune away any trunks that you do not want. Save the shoots which are best at growing upward and in the directions you desire. Move the pots where the new growth will get plenty of sun, but also shaded enough to prevent the roots of heating up much or the leaves from loosing more moisture than they can take up from the roots.

Keep growing these CMS in the pots and repot them whenever needed until you are confident their new trunks are thick enough to survive being transplanted into the landscape.

Once they are transplanted keep them watered well, at least until they are fairly well established.

so you don't think there is any way that i can save them while they are still in the ground?....I did fertilize them with Osmocote this past weekend...seeing if that can help them at all. You think watering them everyday can bring them back?

Are the leaves dead or alive? Is the tree alive? Scrape the bark with your fingernail and if it's green underneath, they are fine. Leave them alone. Water deeply twice a week and give them some miracle grow. They might not bloom this year. That's ok. They will be fine. Next early spring, shape and lightly prune.

oh they are definitely alive....they just look sickly green. i mean most crepe myrtle leaves are this deep green and these all are sickly green. they are alive but they are just there. no new growth. they almost look like they do in the fall before they start losing their leaves...i don't know if that helps any. if i knew how to take pictures and post i would....sorry. thanks for all of the help....but only water twice a week?

Sometimes trees take a while to establish. Twice a week is plenty, but you have to deep water it. Stand there with a hose for a least 5 minutes per plant, swing the hose to another shrub or grass and let the water soak in, then water some more.

I have lots of beautiful crepes, but one of them took nearly 4 years to really get going because the soil was compacted.

If in three years it still looks awful and isn't growing, then consider moving it. Pruning does nothing but ruin the form and certainly doesn't make up for what's happening in the ground.

Are you in Zone 8? Where are you?

Keep in mind that over watering produces the same symptoms in plants as under watering. It sounds like you have watered them well. Once established, they need little or no water. You may have over watered or something else is going on. Have you sprayed anything around in the area that could have drifted on them? Has the lawn area been treated with any type of herbicides? Allow the soil to dry out between watering and then water again.

You may have had something in the soil that is causing a problem. It seems that something is preventing water and minerals from getting from the roots to the leaves. Too much watering would cause a lack of oxygen in the soil, also mulch piled too deep could cut off oxygen.

One other possibility is voles may have eaten most of the hair roots off and the trees need to grow new hair roots in order to take up water and minerals from the soil.

I put in 23 new ones two years ago and all grew the first year and bloomed, but one this year has made no growth. This is the only one I put compost around and I suspect voles have gotten the root hairs, they love compost here.

I agree that overwatering will suffocate the trees, but since you have experienced serious drought conditions, I figured you simply were not able to water them deeply enough at the times they needed such watering.

If your soil is slow draining, and if you did over water them for too long of periods, I do not know how to save them from root rot which surely must have begun to take over by now.

In such a case, the mold in the soil and other root rot pathogens where the trees are planted could also potentially damage any new trees that you plant in the same place from where you remove the dying ones.

i seriously doubt that they are suffering from over watering. these 4 trees are planted on a slight hill, i am leaning towards that they are just not able to keep enough water...i am going to try to save them the best i can....thanks for all of the help