Crepe myrtle - progress

[delisea]

Here is a crepe myrtle that I worked on last summer. It was dug from my back yard, a sucker from a large tree. I got some advice from Danny Coffee of treethepeople fame (look him up). He said to constantly prune back over the growing season. So I cut it back to two buds every 4-6 weeks and defoliated regularly.

cropped crapemyrtle.jpg

crepe myrtle after a year.jpg

back spring 2016.jpg

front spring 2016.jpg

[Watto]

Wow, thank you, very interesting post. I will give this a try this season and report back, thanks again.

[matlea]

Good result for a short amount of time. I have a couple in the ground which will stay there for a few years yet. Good to know how quickly you can get results with this technique.

[Boics]

Interesting.
Mine is in a largish grow pot at the moment and I'd be keen to get some action a bit sooner so will look into this.
Thanks for sharing.

[delisea]

Hey thanks for the interest guys. A couple of things to note. The first shoots that come up tend to have long internodes, which give straight branches. In retrospect I might have cut them back hard earlier. As you get more ramification the internode length shortens. The second thing is that these have opposite branching pattern, but sometimes when you cut back to two buds only one shoots. This is actually a good thing as the resultant branch starts to develop naturalistic curves.

I have found a grove of crepe myrtles in a railway cutting. I cut some back this winter so I am hoping I might have a bunch of these going this summer.
Cheers,
Symon

[bonborn]

Can these be grown through cuttings. I have some one my property but might be hard work digging it out.

[NAHamilton]

Can these be grown through cuttings. I have some one my property but might be hard work digging it out.

I'm not far off doing some and from what I've read easily and with a large diameter. It was this thread from Beano that convinced me

viewtopic.php?f=104&t=16441&hilit=crepe+cutting

Cheers,
Nigel

[Firecat]

Love it.
My neighbor has a magnificent one in the front yard..20' tall and ramified like you would not believe!
He keeps telling me to take cuttings or have a go at an air lay as he looks over the fence at all my trees and knows how I have obtained a few via cuttings and air layering .
He hates the mess when the flowers drop and jokes about chainsawing it of at the ground and filling it with round up.
Maybe soon as the more I see 'crepes' the more I like them
Steve.

[kcpoole]

Can these be grown through cuttings. I have some one my property but might be hard work digging it out.

There is an old story, that if you throw a crepe myrtle stick high into the air, it will come down with roots on it.

They are very easy to propagate from cuttings and or layers. only a few weeks to get viable roots most of the time

Ken

[Firecat]

Can these be grown through cuttings. I have some one my property but might be hard work digging it out.

There is an old story, that if you throw a crepe myrtle stick high into the air, it will come down with roots on it.

They are very easy to propagate from cuttings and or layers. only a few weeks to get viable roots most of the time

Ken

Now I will take my neighbors offer up on pruning his yard tree..Christmas decorations in Spring with all the layers maybe.
Now Q.. when
Steve.

[bonborn]

Can these be grown through cuttings. I have some one my property but might be hard work digging it out.

There is an old story, that if you throw a crepe myrtle stick high into the air, it will come down with roots on it.

They are very easy to propagate from cuttings and or layers. only a few weeks to get viable roots most of the time

Ken

Thanks Ken. Any mention of how high you throw it to get the roots

[melbrackstone]

Firecat I'd take them once they've lost their leaves, stick them into pots of propagating medium, and leave them under the benches til Spring. I did that this past winter, and have lots of new crepe myrtles to play with.

[delisea]

I made some mistakes with this one last year. First here it is with autumn colour.

crepe 2017 autumn leaves.jpg

My plan was to let it grow to 3-4 pairs of leaves, then cut back to 1 pair throughout the whole summer. This would mean no flowers but rapid ramification - a tip from Danny Coffee. However halfway through summer I noticed that the scars from the trunk prune weren't healing. This was because I hadn't used cut paste. Lesson - always use cut paste if you want a scar to heal.
I scraped the edges of the bark and applied cut paste with almost immediate effect. Below you can see the bark starting to grow over after a few weeks of cut paste.

reparing hole.jpg

The next mistake I made was to stop pruning to create more biomass to help the scars heal. This meant that a few branches began to dominate and thicken, which in the winter I had to cut off anyway. Lesson - stick to your plan.

cm 2017 after repot and prune.jpg

This summer I am considering some root grafts to help the surface roots along.
Cheers,
Symon

[Keep Calm and Ramify]

Delisea,
Terrific branch ramification you've acquired there for the amount of time training. Thanks for sharing your progress.
I have a few these in progress at the moment from old nursery stock trees. I found out that they did not appreciate coiled wire around some of the more established branches when I was trying to change some minor angles. Nothing too serious in the bending, but every branch with wire on suffered, died, & then reshot sucker growth from the base.

It looks like all your branching on this tree has been trained by clip and grow from the start, but have you ever had to add (coiled) wire at all to help with setting any of branch positions?
cheers KC&R

[delisea]

Hey KC&R, wire and CMs don't mix in my opinion. Yes, I have used a bit of wire to try and get some curves on few of the longer branches, but not many. I think it needs to go on early and not for long. I am hoping the from here on it will be all done with scissors.

Pls post yours when you feel you have something to show.
Cheers,
Symon