Going for a home run with these. I hate crape myrtles but am sold on these. I planted 6 purple black diamond crapes, and 4 scarlet red black diamond crape myrtles. A trick I found, sense I won't be planting any more, is to take out all of the soil in the pot. Doing so will often times net you two trees, well it did every time with me. Just shake them while at HD/Lowes to see if they are truly two separate trees. They were barely grown together in the ones I planted so I basically got them for 11$ a piece. They will also grow better that way. Replace that crap soil with some good composted manure like black cow mixed with something like miracle grow and or mushroom compost when planting.

Crape myrtle trees are great, shrubs, not so much. The should only be pruned as you would a tree. ( crossed and crowded branches, etc.) I wonder if “crape murder” contributes to mildew and leaf spot. I have never se n it on my trees. I actually have a single trunk tree (a volunteer) that is doing great. Looking forward to seeing it develop.

The old crape murder isn't entirely true. I have seen some beautiful crape myrtles trained into bushes, others using singularly as NON focal points using "crape murder" that have come out quite well. When you have 30 in your front yard and hack them all to pieces that is crape murder to me. I generally agree with thinning them out to have stronger lateral branches but sometimes, as in my case, I prune them so they can block a view.

I guess I over stated that. I am sure they can be carefully pruned in a variety of ways. The worst problem is the annual hacking at the same place leaving huge knobs. I guess the worst part is places where it is done simply because that is what people think should be done! Our nieghborhood has rotating volunteers who chop the crepe myrtles at the entrance to the development and I can think of no gardening or asthetic reason for it to be done.

Also, I have found that even the “recovery pruning” I did when I bought my current house required careful follow up over the next few months to hand prune the multiple sprouts that started on the cuts. Pruning for thining does not do much good if 10 branches grow off the cut.

I have a couple that I have turned into a Harry Potter garden and they look like the whomping willow in the book. I have seen a couple where people got a hold of those that were overly pruned for years creating knobs, then let 2-3 years growth and did it again 2-3 foot higher, then did it again and had a tier or knobs. That is really cool looking to me. I also think crape murder looks good on solidary trees vs rows of them and not on trees at the front of beds. Southern living magazine has a crape murder article all the time and everybody thinks Grumpy gardener is the end all with gardening. People have been pruning crape mytles all different kinds of ways for centuries. To me pruning them with "crape murder" is just about as bad as the people that are aghast when its done. We should all look to the Japanese with pruning as they are so far ahead of us.

I just bought a house in October that have 3 fairly young (about 5 feet tall but thin and very healthy) black crepe myrtles and I have seen no sign of mildew. Not sure why they picked them because they don't seem to fit the area....but maybe they will look nice once they are bigger.

This is an old thread but I thought I would throw in my two cents. I have a black diamond clone with white flowers. I will never have another one. It gets powdery mildew so bad that the whole plant looks gray.