I bought a dormant twilight purple last winter. When leaves started to grow out in spring, unfortunately, it has mildew. I just sprayed them with fungicide and hope that it will go away.

Thanks, house_first_timer. I'm sorry you're running into that trouble. I hope the fungicide will help. The pics I saw of the "Twilight" purple variety are gorgeous, but I did see that the mildew resistance is only listed as "Fair" for that variety, so I will probably steer away from that one. Thank you for sharing your experience.

The series of crepe myrtles named after Native American tribes are bred to be mildew resistant. The variety "Catawaba" is the purple one I think. "Muskogee" is a light lavender. "Catawaba" has leaves that turn a burgandy and red color in the fall, "Muskogee" turns red and orange in the fall.

We planted a Muskogee crepe myrtle last year and have had no issues. The flowers are lavender rather than a bright purple though. The key is to give them enough sun to "bake" in. At least 8 hours per day. We're more inland that you, so that's not a problem with our high summer heat. Muskogee is rated highly for being mildew resistant also. Good luck!

Thank you, Barb. I had heard the same thing about the Native American tribe Crape myrtles being mildew resistant... but upon researching further, I found that not all of those Native American varieties are described as having equally good mildew resistance. Even within that subset of Native American Crape myrtles, mildew resistance seems to range from "Fair" to "Good" to "Very Good"/"High." And for any particular variety, not all the studies agree! Makes it confusing and difficult to choose, for sure.

Thank you, shedthechrysalis. Muskogee is one variety we may consider seriously. From what I read, it gets bigger than we wanted if left unpruned, but maybe we'd have to plan to keep it trimmed to keep it to the 15-20' height range that we wanted. Thanks for the suggestion!

That's true, but like shed.. said, they tend to not mildew as much if you give them a nice hot location. Also, when they're established, which takes about a year, if you water them deeply and infrequently they also mildew less. The worst ones I've seen are those planted in a lawn. All that water and humidity that the lawn gives off makes them very susceptible to mildew. You can also always use a systemic fungicide, like those for roses. Sorry I don't have much else to advise. Good luck, I like your garden plan!

I appreciate all your inputs! After more reading, I'm inclined to go with the Apalachee variety, which is supposed to have superior mildew and leaf spot resistance, plus has the purple (well, at least light purple/lavender) color I'm looking for. However, I'm wondering what I should expect as far as the size. Some sources say the Apalachee variety only gets to 12'... others say 15-20'... and another says their Apalachee grew to 26' within 15 years. What the heck?! Would love to hear any positive or negative experiences with an Apalachee crape myrtle, and/or how tall/wide yours has grown. Thanks!

We planted 5 Catawba's in March. We are in very humid Pensacola Fl. Have not had any problem with mildew. However they did start showing signs of cerasposa leaf spot. We sprayed them with a copper fungicide and they are now fine. I don't think any Crapes are resistant to that anymore. At least in the south. One has just started to bloom and is quite weighted down with flowers now so had to prop it up. They were about 5-6 feet when we planted them and now one of them is nearly 12 feet tall. Not the one pictured. Pardon the neighbors yard. They have no landscaping at all and our crapes are just on the other side of our picket fence. I would think your area is pretty dry so I wouldn't worry too much.

Gorgeous tree, dollfanz! Glad to hear (and see) that your Catawba's are doing well. I'm sure you're right that my area of California is way less humid than Florida, but even so, the Crape myrtle 'Acoma' in my back yard has been horribly infested with mildew for most of its life (almost 10 yrs). The only times it has been more or less mildew-free is for short intervals after my husband has sprayed it with fungicide... and yet the Acoma variety is supposed to have excellent mildew resistance. So mildew on crapes definitely is a real problem here. OTOH, I suspect that that poor mildewed Acoma in my back yard suffers from being in a spot which doesn't get good air circulation, which shouldn't be a problem for the new street tree in the front yard. But still, the threat is real enough to worry me.

We in the bay area get a lot of powdery mildew on lots of different plants because our weather patterns produce perfect powdery mildew conditions.

Powdery mildew is different than most other mildew in that it needs a dry surface to infect a plant. It needs some air moisture, but doesn't like the leaves to be damp.

So, we get high fog almost evening into the morning, and then it burns off midday and we have warm to hot weather and no rain for the rest of the day. That's the perfect combination for powdery mildew. Dry leaves, cool moist air, then warm temps later. It just explodes when the weather is like that.

And we get weeks and weeks of that kind of weather in late spring and early summer, and it sometimes comes back in early fall. And that's pretty much when we get the worst outbreaks of powdery mildew. Lucky us, eh!?

I understand. We get a lot of fog here too being right on the gulf, followed by rain and then sun. Your right, air circulation means a lot. We did put a drench of a yearly systemic down around ours too so that may help. Plus they get full sun and are not blocked on one side by anything. Your house is beautiful btw. I can picture a beautiful crape there.

Thank you for the compliment, dollfanz :-) It will look a lot nicer once the new landscaping goes in. Maybe I'll set a calendar reminder to come back and post photos after the initial install in July, and then a couple years later once the plants have had a chance to mature!

I don't have any advice regarding CMs -- there are three in our yard and I do not know the variety but all are pink and I see a bit of mildew on the one w/the most shade but it's not a problem at all. I actually wanted to propose another purple tree: Vitex. Never mildew on this beauty!

Vitex

Thanks for the suggestion, melle. Vitex is indeed an interesting and beautiful tree, with lovely lavender blooms! However, I live in a city which prescribes certain species of trees as approved street trees (the city actually owns and maintains the trees), and Vitex is not on the approved tree list. Maybe it's not considered appropriate as a street tree because of its more shrub-like form with a low canopy??? I'm not sure. But in any case, it's not on the list, whereas Crape myrtle is. Thanks again for the worthwhile idea, though.

My crape myrtle in inland Orange County was in shade for half the day and it mildewed horribly. The same tree across the street in full sun was fine. If you've got full sun, I bet you'll do well. Can you see mildew on any trees in your neighborhood with similar exposure?

jxbrown, I haven't noticed mildew on other Crape myrtle street trees in the neighborhood, only on the Crape myrtle in my back yard. Fortunately my front yard faces south, so the new street tree will get full sun, and also good air circulation. Hopefully those factors will work in my favor!

Has anyone mentioned Zuni?

Elvie, thanks for the idea. The Zuni variety is quite beautiful, but all the nursery descriptions I've read say that it only gets to 8-10' tall, and we are looking for a tree that will eventually reach 15-20' with low water once established. Do you have a Zuni crape yourself? If so, how large has it grown, and how much do you water it?

Hi there! I know this post is super old. We also live here in San Jose. Do you remember where you source our Acoma Crepe Myrtle? Not having success finding it...

Hi @Kate Vasquez, I'm sorry, but my Acoma Crepe Myrtle was planted by a landscaping company about 15 years ago. I don't know where they sourced it, and even if I did, the availability as of 15 years ago likely wouldn't be relevant to where it can be sourced today. That being said, I have had good luck finding plants at Capitol Wholesale Nursery - and they've been able to special order plants for me when they didn't have them in stock.

I had forgotten all about this thread til I got notified of your post. Since I'm back to answer your question, I'll also take the opportunity to say that with regard to my original question, I ended up planting a Muskogee crape myrtle with light purple flowers. I've been very happy with it and have not had any noticeable problems with powdery mildew. I'm attaching a pic taken today. Thank you to @BarbJP 15-16/9B CA Bay Area and @shedthechrysalis, who pointed me in the direction of the Muskogee variety 5 years ago!