Sounds like cold damage. I have never heard of sunscald damage on crepe myrtle, but I suppose it could be a possibility. Just remove the trunks, select 3-5 of the sprouts, and let them grow into a new tree.

In zone 6 that may not be a possibility.

the trick up here in MI .. z5.. is to get plants dormant.. and keep them dormant ... the plants do not like to go in and out of winter dormancy ... and i bet thats the problem .. especially in the micro climate of this plant vs the others ...

in every..lets say .. 10 year cycle.. youll have the mild winter.. and the bad winter ... the rest normal.. the plants are attuned to the 8 regular years.. and stuff happens the other two ..

no pic.. so im guessing.. the wall is the problem ... and depending on how close.. its not only reflected sun.. but also retained heat into the night .. so maybe it repeatedly thawed and froze .. causing it to go in and out of dormancy ... longer than others.. and that might have been the issue ...

many plants...that have dormant buds.. can regrow .. and with no insult to the relatively massive root mass ... recover rather fast.. and all you need do is train it into some shape you like ...

but if it was a grafted plant .. and it dies below the graft.. then you are left to the whim of whatever the root mass is.. and sometimes its not the quality plant you had before ...

i dont know anything specific to CMs .... so others will have to chime in here ..

regardless ... you have to think in tree time ... and you might have to wait until the next time it blooms to see if its a favorable flower .. and in the mean time.. you just leave it alone ...

every leaf is a food making machine.. so it would probably be best to not start the reformation project for a year or two .. subject to CM peeps opinion of how long that should be ...

but the bottom line.. if its going to absolutely drive you insane.. because you need a disney perfect landscape.. just get rid of it now ... lifes too short to be pissed off at your garden.. lol ..

lastly ... if its planted too close to the house.. and you decide to plant something else .... think about moving away from that wall.. a few more feet

ken

I'm not sure that theory holds with crapes. In my hometown of New Orleans, crapes drop their leaves in winter and don't leaf out until around March, despite temperatures regularly being in the 60s and 70s during any given winter month. The same thing happens all over the South, where in many areas the warmer weather is broken up by some pretty hard freezes (albeit nothing as low or as prolonged as we see in the Northeast).

It seems to take a lot to break crapes out of dormancy, so I'm doubtful that the warm Feb that we had in the Northeast would have done it. Where I live now in the Hudson Valley, mine are just now coming out and had no issues with this past winter. I suppose maybe it's possible for the tree to react differently to a climate with more extreme temperature drops than where the winters are milder.

I was originally thinking SUN, because of all my Crapes (I have five in different locations in the yard, and a couple containerized), the only one that had a real issue with is in the most sun exposed area (in terms of its trunk/bark exposure). I read that they can be also vulnerable to excessive soil moisture but thought that was not a problem given the sun exposure/drying. Still a mystery to me as this one was rated to Zone 6b and ones rated to Zone 7 were okay. Thanks for the ideas.

Do you have issues with deer? They don't show interest in mine, but I've read reports of deer picking at the bark of crapes particularly young ones. Could deer have wounded the trunk and caused it to sustain winter damage it otherwise wouldn't have?

YES, DEER BIG TIME! Funny, I did not even consider the deer!!!

I know that they prefer smooth trunks and Crepes do seem to have very smooth trunks. But having seen rutting damage on other trees, it does seem different. This current damage appear as longitudinal, deep gashes in the lower end of the trunk. I will post a pic when I get home.

P.S., After researching a bit more (including on this site), I see that "frost cracks" can be an issue with strong sun (particularly AM Winter sun), and it was a particularly sunny winter. I really think that's what it was now (as pics seem very similar to what I am seeing). First time I saw this kind of damage, so live and learn. Next year will wrap the one in that particular site.

Here are the pics for the damaged tree.