My full sized 'Pink Velour' are looking raggedy but the only dwarf I have 'Cool Beans' looks as fresh as ever.

It's been such a difficult season it wouldn't surprise me though- several plants/ trees of mine look like they might turn in early this year. They're just over the heat and frankly so am I.

That’s a lot of watering. Did you just plant it this year, or is it established? What is your soil like? Does it drain well? When you say watering, what method do you mean?

Dwarf varieties aren’t different than any others in regards to needs. Has yours flowered as normal this year?

I’m in Texas — we had months straight of triple digits (101 to 113) and scorching sun/drought, and my Crapes were fine with a weekly deep (drip) watering. They are showing signs of stress from the relentless sun and heat, but will be ok.

There’s no way to say for sure without seeing and knowing more. Some varieties might start turning colors during Sept - Oct, but the leaves wouldn’t be browning and curling, they’d just be turning red, orange, or yellow.

“They're just over the heat and frankly so am I.”

Amen. This summer was one of the most brutal we’ve ever experienced here.

is this the plant you had on your balcony for a few years.. dragged to philly and then what .. im wondering if you have left out a lot of facts ...

e.g... planted this year.. its stressed ... in a pot or mother earth.. either.. more stress ... etc ...

stressed recent transplants very commonly get ugly and can go dormant early..

fill us in with the rest of the facts ...

ken

This is a new plant, still in its sales pot, that will shortly be planted. I had to wait for a lot of problems my contractor was facing to be solved, which negatively impacted the speed with which the cedar raised beds were assembled and set up. We have now come a long way toward landscaping the yard and I anticipate being able to plant everyone in the raised beds and rose garden within a week or so. The other dwarf crape myrtle on the porch is still fine, showing a few bronze new leaf tips. And yes, the affected crape myrtle has been flowering. The young rose bush and new hostas on the porch are doing great. The hostas, heucheras, Japanese painted ferns and bleeding hearts will all go into the 2 cedar raised beds shaded by my neighbor's overhanging mulberry tree. It is pretty shady there, perfect for them. The other perennials will go on the other side of the backyard, where it's sunny all day--perfect for them. The dwarf crape myrtles will go into deep beds in sunny corners, filled with nice soil enriched with compost. The 11 rose bushes will soon grace the rose bed I am preparing for them along the picket fence in the front yard. The front and back yards are being denuded of the crabgrass that just won't die and will be improved with 2" of top soil mixed with compost and then planted with sod (front yard) and tall fescue grass seed (back yard), then mulched to prevent birds from eating the seed.

And BTW Ken, it's suburban BALTIMORE, not Philly.

Oh, I thought they were already planted, sorry.

They’re just stressed, but should be fine. :)

Thanks, Jinx. Funny, the Bellini Grape one right next to the browning Infinitini purple is doing just fine. That's the Berry Dazzle dwarf crape myrtle with the fuschia flowers already planted in the front of the yard. It's doing great and flowering heavily. I have to water nearly every day because the temps have been mostly in the very high 80s and mid 90s for the past month and more, and otherwise, I have major wilting of everyone. Once I water, everyone is happy again and perks right up.

They all behave so differently and sure keep us on our toes. :)

I just remembered one I planted last year, in a kind of out of the way spot in the yard. I actually forgot about it this summer, in the chaos of trying to keep everything else alive in non-stop triple digits.

Amazingly, it’s doing the best of all my CMs! It got 30 minutes of sprinkler system irrigation (certainly not a deep watering or theoretically enough to keep a young one going) every 2-3 weeks, sometimes even less, as I was letting the grass go dormant. It’s absolutely thriving. I can’t remember the variety, but it’s a tough one!

I am pretty new to crape myrtles, but I just love them. I'm also getting into buddleias. I got a teeny dwarf one called Flutterby Petite Tutti Fruitti, and then I just HAD to get the lovely Miss Molly. I enjoy the many butterflies attracted to them. I actually had a little female Ruby Throated hummingbird in my yard a couple weeks ago, but she was targeting some calibrachoa I had planted in a milk can. My one already planted crape myrtle Berry Dazzle was consistently wilty looking until I lengthened the time I stood there watering. After a few days of that, it really began to take off. So I keep it up.

"still in its sales pot"

Ahh. Likely rootbound and drying out too quickly each day.

That one does it and another does not really doesn't mean anything- they're different plants with different root systems perhaps even from different growers, who knows what's going on in those pots.

Get them into the ground and they will be fine. Remember to check the roots and open them up if need be and fine tune whatever DEEP watering method you have planned so that it actually penetrates the soil to full root depth.