I love your tree with the coons. Where did you get that? That is a pretty crepe myrtle but if it has to be moved you will just have to take the chance. I have already had several frosts and the leaves are off the crepe myrtles here. I think this cold weather coming will probably get the leaves soon. They have forecast low twenties here for Wed. morning. I was going to say cut it back until I saw the picture. Now I don't know, it is a pretty shape. I think it is going to be very hard to dig up. After you have it up you will know more about whether the roots can support the top. Maybe you can remove some of the branches to the ground cutting the ones that seem weakest. It will take an artists touch to remove some of the top with out a flat top. You shouldn't have to wire it up so it may need some of the top out anyway.

Mia, be prepared to get a very deep root. I "dug up" my crape myrtle three times, before I actually got all the root.

Honestly, I don't think it is to big to transplant. Just tie it for the remainder of the winter season, to give it time to settle in and feel at home.

:)

Moni

Thanks, Helen, the tree is actually a stump still in the ground that was sculpted before we bought the house. It think it is a pine that got killed by the pine wilt a few years ago. You can see in the second picture, under the CM, there is a small statue of a racoon - I think that was what the stump sculpture was modeled on as they are very similar. I like how it looks with the four-o-clocks around it, but during the off-seasons it looks odd because the bottom five feet of stump is bare. It is going to have to be cut down for the new patio, too, but I am going to tuck it in amongst the bamboo when it is cut shorter (probably 4 feet tall instead of 10) so it is peeking out.

We are supposed to be in the 20s overnight here today, so am thinking it will go dormant then. It still has orange leaves right now. I will just dig and dig and hope for the best, Moni! If the rootball seems too small, I will try eliminating some branches to have less for the roots to support.

I have about 25 crape myrtles, but I wanted to wait to see what others said since I don't treat them the way others do.

I always cut them back, and remove many of the canes. I often take them back to about 4-6 canes, and cut them back to about my waist, maybe a little higher. Mine thrive on this treatment, and zoom. When I see a branch that is going to the side that we might run into, I cut it. I also try to cut out limbs that grow near the ground and keep most leaves a little higher as it grows. I don't want to provide rabbit homes.

My reasoning is that i have many roses, and tall crape myrtles make your head bob when you are looking at the roses and the crape myrtles.

Many of my crape myrtles grow to maybe 8-9 feet.

The ones I planted in the spring grew to about 6 feet.

The roots are all over the place, and sometimes I have a crape myrtle volunteer that does not flower. It goes.

Now you can make choices by size and color.

If I were going to move one, I would definitely cut it back to about 4 canes, and lower them for the move. But if I didn't do that, my husband would not consider moving it.

Good luck.

Sammy

To update on this thread, our pool contractor told me they could have the bobcat dig a big root ball for this crape myrtle and lift it over to wherever we want to dig a hole for it to go. They came on Wednesday to start tearing things up, and I was at the grocery store when they dug the crape myrtle. Here it is:

It's hard to tell, but the root ball may be five inches deep and seven inches across. Whomp, whomp. #fail

And the current state of our backyard is definitely interesting:

Mia, are you taking the pool out?

Moni, the pool stays but it's getting a makeover! There will be a new retaining wall at the back edge (just in front of the bamboo), a new patio all the way around, new lights, new tile and new plaster. We're also going to build a pergola at one end. We did fill in the hot tub, as it would not hold water and was not in the best location for us, and the price to fix it was going to be steep. Someday we may get a portable spa.

Spent yesterday outside planting the bits and pieces that had been excavated. We put in that crape myrtle. It was thinned of about four or five canes via the bobcat's rough treatment, so we got it in the ground and staked it. Also had five euonymus japonicus green spire bushes in various sizes and shapes, from one 8 foot tall, 3 feet wide to one 3 feet tall and maybe 1 foot wide. A small rose bush and a creeping euonymus were relocated, too. There were also a ton of irises that I sifted out of the rubble to plant in the new location. The only thing I lost was a walker's low catmint I'd just bought this year, so was a little bummed about that, but I can get a new one next summer.

We've had some other damage from the construction, like my beautiful Japanese maple getting mangled and a small brick planting bed getting run over. Hopefully it will all be worth it when it's over!

Mia, Oh, your poor backyard! I looked at those photos and thought to myself "This can't be Mia's gorgeous yard!" I am sure the results will be worth it all when the work is all done and the landscape can begin its recovery. Even though your crape myrtle appears to have been mangled by that Bobcat, I think there is a really good chance it will bounce back and survive.

Crape myrtles are really tough and can survive almost anything. There are some clumps of them planted in the I-35 highway median here in our county that periodically get damaged, and sometimes demolished, by automobile wrecks, and I've never seen one of them die. They always bounce back, though sometimes they are slower to leaf out than nearby ones that weren't damaged.

Dawn