Crape Myrtles are awesome! You could have asked me a year ago what I thought about Crape Myrtles and I would wouldn’t have had much to say. I’ve seen them around but never really gave them much thought. But, all of that changed after I planted one.

Earlier this year, we lost one of our peach trees. It was sad because the tree was well established and had given us yearly bundles of peaches. But it had been blown over a few times by storms and never grew the same again. It also had some sort of sap disease that eventually did it in. After we removed that tree, we needed to find something to replace it. We have Crape Myrtle trees all over the area where we live and they are so pretty when they bloom that we decided to plant one. The smooth bark on the trees is pretty cool, too.

Because of COVID, we have been avoiding going into any stores unnecessarily so going to our local home improvement store nursery where we usually buy our plants was out of the question. So, I decided to look on Amazon. Crazy, huh? You can order live plants through Amazon. Who knew.

I ended up buying our tree from The Crape Myrtle Company through Amazon. Fantastic company to work with. They not only sent us the tree we ordered but they included a free “mystery” tree, too. So unexpected and wonderful! I ordered a medium CATAWBA tree. Beautiful! Take a look at this picture of one full grown.

When we purchased our tree it was only 2-3 feet tall. Here are a couple of pictures of how it looked when we first planted them.

These were planted for about a week. At first, I thought for sure they were dying. The one planted in the ground lost all of its leaves. I wrote to the Crape Myrtle company and they were so kind and responded immediately. They reassured me that it was normal for the trees to lose their leaves initially but to give it about two weeks to start turning around and budding.

Wouldn’t you know that just shy of two weeks, I started to notice green buds along the branches. I was so happy! After that, they just took off and have been growing ever since. Here are some more recent pictures, flowers and all.

I have done very little to these two trees and they are just happy on their own. Crape Myrtles are supposed to be very forgiving and require little in care.

If you decide to plant these wonderful trees, here are a few things to keep in mind. They love the sun! The sunnier spot you can find to plant them in the more vibrant blooms you will have. They also do not like to have too much water so watering once or twice a week is plenty. I’ve been watering once a week and they are happy as can be. Lastly, when you see blooms that are fading or drying up, carefully pick them off. That will make way for more blooms.

I would highly suggest ordering from The Crape Myrtle Company, too. I had such a wonderful experience with them. Healthy trees, delivered on time and excellent customer service. Oh, and I can’t forget the free tree they included, as well. 😉

Do you have any Crape Myrtle trees? If so, what kinds/colors? Any tips you can suggest on caring for them?