I haven't tried rooting crapes yet. What I do with other plants is dip the bottom inch or two in rooting hormone powder. You can buy it at any plant supply place.

I then pot it up, be sure to press soil firmly around the stem.

Keep moist, but well drained, and wait and hope.

I do all of my cut and dip stuff in Feb. The plants are usually ready for transplanting late spring and you don't have to worry about the heat wilting them.

Why not try it? I'd personally wait until fall,do what timesto says and overwinter it in a garage until next spring. I'd also plant it where the suckers it will create can be easily mowed. I hate that about crepe myrtles! PJ

i read a tip about how to do this and i tried it and it worked for me so i will share my tip with you!!!
take a shovel and dig all around the sucker detaching the roots from the mama but don't dig it out leave it there for a while (i left my in that spot for at least a month) then plant it in the new spot. mine took off really fast after i transplanted. hope this helps!!!

I have been babying a lavender blooming sucker from a friend's yard for 2 years in a pot. Finally started blooming last week. We literally shovel pruned the parent tree's roots and put it right into a pot of soiless mix (this was in October, just before dormancy). That being said, 2 years is a long time to wait for blooms!

Pam

shipp53: that sounds like a really practical idea - thanks

Oh, the horrors! The volunteer I've been wanting to transplant was mowed down! It's from our mama crape myrtle, but the tree is near our fence and the volunteer is in our neighbor's yard by their driveway. I had plans to explain to them that it was a lousy place for such a large plant to take root and offer to move it for them. The day I decided to go over there, it had been mowed. Aaaaarrrgh!

There are others in our yard that I can use, but this one was a bit larger and looked healthier to me. We'll see what we can do.

freshair
i forgot to say i transplanted mine last fall and it is 4-5' tall and has bloomed this year!!!

Freshair,

we have over 20 crepe myrtles in our yard. The suckers grow right next to the original tree. You can have seedlings come up elsewhere. The seeds are light enough where some could have blown into your neighbor's yard. This must be what you saw. But, if it's been mown over, it hasn't hurt it in any way. We chopped one of our's all the way down to the ground because we were going to build something in that spot. We dug it up, gave it to someone else who planted it, and it came back beautifully. When it was mown over, it was just like it was pruned back. A new branch will come up. So, if you still want to dig it up, go for it ! They are very forgiving plants !! Good luck.

patty

Patty ~

Although the volunteer is in my neighbor's yard, its only 4ft from our tree b/c our tree is just inside the fence. There are a handful of volunteers that I've removed at least 5ft from the trees, and each time, I have to bust through a monster-sized root (at least as wide as my thumb) to separate the baby from the mama. These are definitely suckers.

I actually love crape myrtles, but we've been trying to get rid of the existing ones b/c they are entirely too close to the fence and the live oak. The branches scrape alley traffic and have forced the live oak to grow lopsided. We can't "dig up" the crapes b/c their bases are about 18" across and that's just too much for us to tackle.

I'd really like to save at least one of the babies and plant it in an area of the yard where it'll have enough room that I can let it be itself.

But I'll talk to the neighbor about saving the one she mowed and moving it my yard a couple of wks after I separate it from the mama (using shipp53's suggestion).

~ Amy

I dug up a row of mature crepe myrtles that had gotten to large to effectively prune back. Boy! Was that a tough job. I ended up having to just hack away at the roots to get to the root ball and then pull up with a chain/truck. I have replanted with a row of a smaller variety.

Now, I have HUNDREDS of suckers coming up everywhere that roots were left in the ground... about a 3ft circle around where the tree was. Some of the roots that were as far away as 5 or 6 feet are now producing suckers.

I get the impression that you really can't kill a crepe myrtle.

Now, with all the suckers, I'd like to root them to plant in other areas or give away.

When I pull them from the ground, they break off from the mother root. Will these form their own roots? How? I just pulled up about a hundred or more.

I imagine I will be cutting/pulling up suckers for years.

Oh this gives me so much hope for my front yard!! i have a giant crepe Myrtle at the corner of my house who’s roots are growing suckers 4-10 feet away but too close to the house and i really just want to transplant them all over my front yard that dies by August every summer because of the lack of shade! The mother trees shoots grow so fast I figure I could have some GREAT trees providing shade in no time!

Laura instead of removing sucker from parent's root, cut parent rot 6" to 1' in each direction leaving sucker attached to severed root. Do this as far from main trunk as possible to maximize root left with parent. Do it from time leaves fall to mid-February.