This may seem like sinful to some of you but how can you get rid of them when they reach the monster stage? No kidding. I think they planted one in every backyard when the homes were built in my neighborhood in the 1950's. I moved here in 1989 and there was this little pretty shrub. Last year I cut the 2 inch diameter stalks back to about 7 feet. Guess what. They sprouted and sent stalks up way over the roof again to about 15 feet.

There was a time when I ran the lawn mower over them and thought they were gone. Somehow they came back with a vengeance. I can still run the mower over the new plants that try to grow up through suckers nearby. Problem with these plants they put in in the 50's is they have acclimated and maybe can't even be killed nowadays. I've got a nandina out front that I have to cut back about 4 to 6 times a year to keep it from growing over the roof and the path to the front door.

Is there a way to kill the crape myrtle? I'd much rather plant a couple of drarf fruit trees there instead. Over the years I've poured dirty motor oil on them, caustic household/bathroom chemicals and drain cleaners, brush and stump killers, etc. None worked.

Hank

The Sprouts can be pulled up from the roots. Cutting back the crape myrtle makes it send out sprouts.

How big is the trunk part of the crape myrtle? I have one that is about two feet wide, and I intended to dig a hole in it, and pour in table salt. I also intended to pour Round Up over it when I cut it back, but I forgot, and up it went. Mine only went up about 6 feet. You can pour Round Up over the new growth and stop it. Then you can start digging down, and cutting the roots. Little by little you can cut the roots, and saw the larger roots. It will take time, but that is all I can think of.

Now that I have had trouble with the one, I have begun pruning the larger ones by cutting out the huge canes and allowing the smaller ones to grow. That way I hope to not have that problem again.

SAmmy

When I cut it back to 7 foot 'canes' I intended to plant runner beans around them and let the beans just climb all over them but I never got around to planting the beans. Maybe next year, eh.

Thanks,

Hank

Hank,

Sometimes the roots of monster plants that are extremely well-established can be nearly impossible to remove. I second Sammy's suggestion that you use Round-Up or something like it. One way to increase the odds that it will work is to cut the plant back to within a few inches of the ground. Then, use a drill to bore some holes in the largest trunks. Pour Round-Up directly into those holes. If new leaves sprout, spray them with Round-Up. You may have to do it several times. If all else fails, you can hire someone to come in with a stump grinder and grind out the underground stumps/roots of the plant.

One method I use to get rid of persistent poison ivy plants is to cut them back, spray the new sprouts with brush killer, and then put a metal coffee can or galvanized bucket or trash can upside down over them. The bucket or can cuts off the light that reaches the plant and weakens it, but may not kill it. You may get new sprouts outside the area covered by the can or bucket. However, you ought to be able to mow those down before they get too big.

Dawn

I have a purple (medium) one I'd like to get rid of. Right now, it's about 5-6' tall, and is in the dwarf (dwarf is up to 12' tall, though) category. Someone want to come dig?

I don't know why I planted the darned thing. I really am not fond of crepe myrtles at all. My neighbor, however, has one of the newer red cultivars, and his is really pretty, but not pretty enough that I want one. I'd rather put a butterfly plant in it's place. CMs don't attract any butterflies at all.

Susan

I removed 7 very large plants last summer. I dug around the root ball as deep as possible with shovel and pick axe and them use my truck to hank them out of the ground. None of them have come back. They were plants about 12-14 foot tall. The root balls were so heavy I had a hard time loading them in my truck.

I personally don't care for crape myrtles. Wet springs give them black spot and other fungus problems. Then big ones are dumping copious amounts of used blooms all over the place. You plant different colors together and they rarely grow at the same pace. Big plant, small plant, big plant, small plant, small plant, small plant.

randy

Randy,

As much as I love to see beautiful, well-maintained crape myrtles in someone else's landscape, I have to confess that I don't have any here at our place in Oklahoma. We did have them in Fort Worth--mature Watermelon Pink ones that were beautiful but which really dominated the landscape as they were quite large and vigorous. I didn't care for the dead blooms and seedheads either or for the foliar problems.

I do hate seeing the way they are over-pruned in the spring--especially in commercial settings. In Texas, several of the garden writers refer to the incorrect/overly aggressive spring pruning as 'crape murders'.

Someday I would like to plant a couple here, somewhere away from the house where I won't be as annoyed by their imperfections. If I ever do it, I am leaning towards 'Dynamite', which is the prettiest red-flowered crape myrtle I've ever seen.

Dawn

Oh, yeah, those dead blooms. I go around and shake them off only to have to do it again the next day. The red flowering ones really are stunning, Dawn, aren't they?

They don't seem to show the die back in the blooms as much as the others. I think I must have been in a "purple haze" when I bought the one I have.

Susan

I had three crape myrtles at my old house, and I loved them, although they didn't bloom as well in the sandy soil as they do in other places. I planted a red 'Dynamite' at my new house this spring and I absolutely love it. It's still small, but it's been blooming its little heart out all summer. I plan on buying a couple more next summer. I LOVE these new red varieties.

Hi Dawna,

Thanks for the feedback on the Dynamite crape myrtles. I am thinking of planting them on a sloping area between the garage and the pond. We can see that spot from the back yard, so we could enjoy their blooms....but it is not in an area where we spend a lot of time, so the messy blooms wouldn't be as much of a nuisance.

How are things at the new house? I bet your tropicals are loving the heat!

It is hot and dry here, but I am grateful that we were spared the excessive rains and flooding (although a little rain would be nice).

Dawn

I have two Dynamites that I planted 3 years ago. This spring when everyone's CMs froze out, they were damaged also. But, they came back beautifully, better than my neighbor's pink crepes which froze to the ground. The blooms are so large and the color can't be beat. They also bloom all the way into the fall with a little deadheading. These are the best CMs I've ever had.

Sandy

Thanks, Okiedawn, for your references. Educating myself about CM is one thing--finding the plant I want is another. I have not yet found a source for a dwarf, light pink. Like many others, I am turned off by those huge thickets with only a few tiny blossoms at the ends of the branches, so I will be reluctant to purchase until I am sure of what I am purchasing. That said, with all the praise for Dynamite and I may just change to RED!!!

Crape Myrtles is one of the large shrubs I do enjoy, but I am sad that they don't' attract the hummers or butterflies..

If you have a large area that needs to be landscaped, you can't go Wrong with a Crape Myrtle to give you that splash of color we all long for in late summer.
---
Kirts

I love my crape myrtles! I think of them as Southern lilacs. You do have to trim them but I dont have anything I dont have to trim and prune.

Speaking of Round up! My yard is terraced from the adjacent property. My neighbor had volunteer trees sprouting along your fence so she decided to get rid of them. I am not sure what she used but what ever it was she used gallons of it. I lost rosebushes, lillies, sedum, red bud tree, hydrangeas, a lilac bush which is probably 15 feet high. My north side of the yard is a desert now. Nothing is growing not even the bermuda! Anyone need a great brush killer let me know. I will ask her when I am speaking to her again.

Maybe I will take up knitting----surely I could do that without mother nature going crazy or my neighbors driving me nuts. Steffie

Steffie,

Good heavens--I am SO sorry to hear that your neighbor killed your plants. I don't suppose she has offered to replace the plants that she killed? I think I would have to have a talk with her and explain that she is obligated to replace the plants that died. It is incomprehensible to me that a person would spray so carelessly. Of course, the kind of people who kills your plants with their careless use of herbicides are usually the kind of people who don't feel obligated to replace what they killed.

Do you have a wooden privacy fence between their yard and yours? It would help block the weedkiller, although you probably would still get some drift. It worked fairly well for us in Fort Worth, although the swimming pool maintenance company THEN killed my plants by letting the chlorine gas drift over them after they had assured me that my poolside plants would be fine.

One thing I like about living in the country is that your neighbors generally are not right next to your property line spraying stuff that kills your plants. I LOVE our neighbors....they are all truly wonderful people, but a little physical distance can be a good thing. Our nearest neighbor's house is at least 100 yards from ours, and we have such a heavily wooded area between us that we cannot see one another's houses. However, since we live in a rural area, there is still quite a lot of agricultural spraying of herbicides that does occur. I think I have had damage from herbicide drift 2 or 3 times since we moved here, but only enough to damage the plants and not enough to totally kill them.

Are you going to replant the area? Give the neighbor a good talking-to? Have an attorney write a letter? Sorry, but I simply couldn't 'be nice' and let the killing of my plants pass without attempting to do something to get them to make it right. Landscape plants are a major investment!
I don't know what you do with a neighbor like that. (Make a voodoo doll? Start praying that they will move?)

Dawn

Dawn:

She did not spray, she poured it directly on the ground. YOu can see the flow of the stuff, whatever it was, down the side of the slope. I had her come and look at it but since that time she only speaks to my husband, not me. Of course I was explaining to her that my plants were dead due to some type of weed killer. We have a wood privacy fence but it still flows underneath cause we keep the pickets off the ground due to rot.

Rain! Unreal! My garage flooded and we dont live in a flood plane. But with the drowning here in Seminole because she got caught in the rushing water in her car, my garage is not a problem. However, the wind was unreal. When the bands hit the wind was coming from the west. Sustained at 50-60, raining so hard you could not see, and the wind was not stopping. I am use to gusty winds this was just endless. Then the wind switched and came out of the east just instantly. Scary stuff, I watched the ladies across the street shingles blow in the yards, trash cans, etc. There was property damage everywhere and I believe Seminole county was declared a disaster area. Shawnee is in the same shape but things are back to normal now for most of us. At the lucky ones.

Thanks for asking. Just think of my ruined plants and remember I like do overs. :(

Steffie

Hi Steffie!

You are a saint! I hope your careless neighbor at least promised she'd never do it again? There's a new weedkiller on the market that claims nothing will regrow in the sprayed area for one year....I hope that is not the one she used!

All those days and weeks of rain and flooding, I just kept thinking "Steffie is floating away..." so I am glad that you did NOT float away and hope the damage to the garage is minor.

We have cut a couple of drainage swales on our land to help channel water away from the garage/house and down to the big pond and they pretty much worked although they did fill up and overflow. Another swale was cut to carry water away from the driveway, although the rushing water from our neighbor's property (which is a higher elevation than ours) still washes out our driveway if we get a really, really heavy rain. Luckily, we have neighbors with tractors and scrapers and box blades and they come out after severe rainstorms and fix everyone's eroded driveways!

We had a few days of flooding.....but nothing near our house specifically, although our neighborhood got hit at least twice with severe flash flooding.

So, have you started making plans to replant the ruined area....next spring maybe? What kind of planting are you going to do?

Dawn

How do i kill the poison ivy ,and not the crape myrtle it is twisted up in?