I have two Catawabas I bought from the same lot at the same time. I love purple ,especially on trees, so I had to have one or two! I had trouble placing one of the two trees. I transplanted it a couple times. The other tree was babied and not moved. Strangely, the transplanted one is not only the same size as the babied one, it's ready to bloom while the other,spoiled one just sits there like a lump. So maybe if you're mean to the tree, move it around a bit and call it a "pain to put in the right place". It will do better?

I read that yellow/red leaves are a sign of stress (mine are green now). It could be lack of nitrogen or poor drainage. That's just what I read on line. I haven't had mine turn that color before fall.

Hmmm, poor drainage is one thing I had not even considered since ordinarily the soil around here drains too fast, but it's certainly worth checking.

How does one do that? Dig a hole close to the plant, fill with water and see if any water stands in it?

I dig down and see if it's soggy. I keep checking and checking so see if it's that way a lot. Usually if I suspect it's got poor drainage I'm right. Then I get angry at having poor drainage and squeeze the plants in somewhere else pissed that my design is screwed up.

You may also have leaf spot but I think that's less common on the newer variaties like Catawaba.

Yes, dig a hole near by and fill it with water. Check to see how long it takes to drain.

I'm too lazy to do the percolation test but this is how to do it:

Dig a hole 18 o 24 inches deep; width is not important, but should be at least 6 inches wide for ease in taking measurements.

2. Fill the hole with water all the way to the top and let the hole sit overnight.
3. In the morning, refill the hole to within a couple of inches of the top.
4. To aid in measurement, place a stick across the top of the hole and insert a second stick down into the water in the hole. Mark the water level on this stick and wait 30 minutes.
5. Mark the water level after 30 minutes and again after 60 minutes.
6. Measure the water level again the next day.
7. Determine the average drop in water level per hour and refer to the table below to interpret your results.If the water level in your hole drops less than one half inch per hour, your soil drains poorly.
   If the water level in your hole drops one half inch to one inch per hour, your soil drains moderately well.
   If the water level in your hole drops more than one inch per hour, your soil drains well.

PJ, that is way too scientific.!!!

Sheesh y'all are smarter than me! This should be easy!

Is it planted too deeply?

You should be able to see the trunk flare at the bottom;
if the trunk is the same diameter at the soil level as it is further up (like a telephone pole), the tree is planted too deeply.

You can dig out the soil around a too-deeply-planted tree, but the resulting depression doesn't look very good & it'll always hold water.

The best thing to do would be to dig up the tree & plant it in a shallower hole.

Crepes have smallish root systems & they're remarkably easy to transplant.

I wish you the best.

Sylvia, that's something else I hadn't considered. After doing a percolation test for my own curiosity I'll check out the depth of the roots by looking at the flare. It's multi-trunked. We did add compost to the bed last year; maybe too deeply for this plant.

Then, depending on what problems I find I'll dig it up, amend the soil if that's called for and replant it. Even with digging it up this time of year it couldn't be much worse off than it is now.

Thanks for all your replies! One way or another maybe we'll get to the root of the problem, pun intended :-)

Okay, I dug a deep narrow hole beside the crape myrtle and filled it with water, which was hard to do as it drained so fast. When I finally got it about 3/4 full I removed the water hose and it drained like it was going down the sink. It took less than a minute so poor drainage and soggy soil is not the problem. At least we know that much.

Then I dug it up. I'm not sure if it was planted too deep, but it seems that wouldn't have been a big problem since the soil is so light.

Here's a photo of the roots:

I replanted it about a foot over from where it was, mixed compost and Bio-tone Starter Plus into the soil, cut the plant back by a third, replanted plenty high and watered it well. Then I applied a couple of gallons Medina Soil Activator plus. So we shall see if this treatment gives the plant a little jump start to get it going again.

It seems that the roots did not have the little white feeder roots that I expect to see when I dig up roses, but I'm not sure what healthy crape myrtle roots are supposed to look like. They are alive but did not seem to be actively growing. Why they were not is still the mystery.

I have no clue! Maybe the tree itself just has no will to live. I've had plants like that. They were in what appeared to be very close conditions as the other plants I bought of the same type at the same time. I never did figure out what was wrong. In fact, I had a columbine do that recently. It made it through that hideously cold winter, started to green up and grow, then just *proof* died overnight. Strangely enough it's offspring are ALL OVER THE SAME SPOT! You'd think if the mother plant died that tender little volunteers would croak too but they're growing like crazy.

Maybe the soil drained too fast for the crepe to absorb it.

Well, that's certainly a consideration as the water there drains pretty fast -- that's for sure, but it was in improved soil with compost added every couple of years.

We built the bed for roses so it was raised and we dug down so the bed was 18 inches deep and we filled it with rose soil, but this was quite a few years ago. We stopped growing roses there because of the deer. However, since putting an electric wire around it I planted three antique roses there in late winter, two Mrs. Dudley Cross and a Nac. noisette. The D.C.s are not taking off as fast as I think they should, but the Henry Duelberg salvias are doing great so it may be a water holding problem.

Gardening certainly takes a lot of head scratching problem solving sometimes!

I have no clue what is wrong with yours, but I've been noticing similar crape myrtles around town lately.

If they were as deep as the soil is on the trunk (looks like about 2/3 up from the bottom of the photo), then it was buried not planted (I always wanted to use that line :)

I don't think you can plant Crape Myrtles too high - I have one that was in a whiskey barrel; I broke up the barrel and left the crape sitting on top of a bit of soil about 8" about the ground, and it's doing great.

Here's hoping you planted it pretty shallow - looking at the one on the right, the root below the bottom of the clump of soil on the trunk, should be at (or slightly above) soil level.

Anyway, that's what I would do, and then I'd shake its trunk and tell it if it doesn't grow, then I'm going to feed it to the chipper/shredder... (My grandmother always threatened her African violets to get them to bloom, and it always worked).

Lin

Here is a link that might be useful: Check out the Root Flare on crape myrtles!

Thanks so much for the link with photos of the ideal Crape myrtle trunk flare. I had no idea they needed that much flare exposed. I did replant it very high with all the trunk explosed. With that and everything else done with loving care hopefully it will flourish. Maybe cutting it back will be enough of threat to get it going, ya' think? :-)

Be careful when threatening a tree. My neighbor caught me lecturing a couple yaupons that aren't doing well. I felt half stupid and half crazy. The worst part was he didn't look surprised (wonder if it's goofy garden outfit...). It DOES work so I keep doing it.

"The worst part was he didn't look surprised"

snork!

I bought a couple of Crape Myrtles from Lowe's a couple of weeks ago and planted them in the ground..A few days later I saw the leaves as shown in the pictures..I don't see any insects on the leaves but not sure what is wating the leaves..Any help is greatly appreciated. This is in Austin TX

I looks like leaf cutting bees have visited your crape myrtle. There's not much you can do about it, and you wouldn't want to anyway. We need all the native bees we can get since the honey bees are in trouble. The damage they do is minimal and won't hurt the tree in the long run.

The site linked below came up when I searched Google for leaf cutter bees. It is about native bees and how to encourage them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf-Cutting Bees on Crape Myrtle trees ...

Hi Roselee, Thanks much for your quick response..I suspected the same after doing some online research, but didn't notice not even a single bee on the tree..Anyhow good to know that no need to worry about the problem