# Bringing back a Crape Myrtle?



## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

I hope I won't be judged too harshly, but after living the condo life for many years, I'm new to landscaping and just now learning! When my husband and I bought our house there was a large tree planted too close to the house which hit it and windows when there was any wind. We had no idea what it was, but chose to remove it. Two years later, I'm now pretty sure it was a crape myrtle. We have had continuous shoots coming up from that spot in the yard. There seems to be no way to stop it. I've decided I'd like to have it come back hopeful that it can look nice again. Does anyone have any idea if this is possible? I'm adding a picture of what it currently looks like after I came back from a week of vacation.


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## RDZed (Jul 13, 2018)

Basically don't do anything to it for a few years, on the main plant. Let those soft wood shoots harden off for a while. 
After a few years of unimpeded growth, lightly hand trim it to your desired shape.

They are almost bulletproof.


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

RDZed said:


> Basically don't do anything to it for a few years, on the main plant. Let those soft wood shoots harden off for a while.
> After a few years of unimpeded growth, lightly hand trim it to your desired shape.
> 
> They are almost bulletproof.


Thank you! So, I assume it will go through some ugly phases then.. I actually attempted this last year and by winter I just had a bunch of hard sticks coming out of the ground. We dug it all up again this spring bc it wasn't very attractive.. but sounds like I should just suffer through those phases, eh? Thanks!


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## RDZed (Jul 13, 2018)

Yep. Dont touch the "hard sticks". They arent dead. The plant has withdrawn its sap into the rootball to over winter. They will bud again in spring.

Just leave it be. In 2 years it should start to flower again.


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

RDZed said:


> Yep. Dont touch the "hard sticks". They arent dead. The plant has withdrawn its sap into the rootball to over winter. They will bud again in spring.
> 
> Just leave it be. In 2 years it should start to flower again.


ok, thanks again! I'll try to be more patient this year!


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## RDZed (Jul 13, 2018)

NP. Just give it time.


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

@KarriQ, I loathe Crepe Myrtles for this exact reason...suckers and unwanted shoots in the lawn. They spread like bamboo and are impossible to manage. But they're pretty, cheap, and impossible to kill so builders always use them everywhere.

I finally won my ongoing Myrtle battle using "Crossbow" herbicide. It's a fence line killer. Just paint the myrtle leaves with a little Crossbow and diesel fuel or kerosene mixed in a cup. Carefully paint the myrtle leaves and nothing else. Crossbow kills trees, so don't get any on other plants you want to live. You may have to repeat this several times as new shoots appear, but eventually you'll kill all the roots.

Once the myrtle roots are dead, you can plant a nice Virginia Magnolia, hybrid dogwood, Japanese cherry, or some other pretty decorative tree that won't ruin your lawn and landscaping. Personally, I'd plant further from your house than your photo suggests. Crepe Myrtles, hollies, and many other "shrubs" are actually trees and should never be planted right against a building. The roots are easily large enough to cause foundation problems. There are roadside myrtles in my town which have to be almost 30 feet tall.


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## corneliani (Apr 2, 2019)

My mother was the kind of soul who couldn't bear the thought of killing a plant and she would plant every and anything every which where. My wife on the other hand is very particular about purpose, color, growth habit, ease of maintenance, etc. I mention this because you're in the situation where you can make either call. There's a beauty to letting something live that so valiantly is fighting for life.. but there's no guarantee that you'll like the end result. There are a ton of crepe myrtle varieties in different growth habits.. bushes, trees, etc. If you are particular about things then it may be best to dig out that plant and pop one that you know will work. If you let this one grow, know that you'll need to prune it now that it's been cut in order to define and encourage the right growth habit. Either way, have fun! Plants are a wonderful microcosm of life.. it'll fight to live and sometimes you can't kill it even when you want, but do something like give it the wrong soil and it won't grow at all.  Go figure.


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

corneliani said:


> My mother was the kind of soul who couldn't bear the thought of killing a plant and she would plant every and anything every which where. My wife on the other hand is very particular about purpose, color, growth habit, ease of maintenance, etc. I mention this because you're in the situation where you can make either call. There's a beauty to letting something live that so valiantly is fighting for life.. but there's no guarantee that you'll like the end result. There are a ton of crepe myrtle varieties in different growth habits.. bushes, trees, etc. If you are particular about things then it may be best to dig out that plant and pop one that you know will work. If you let this one grow, know that you'll need to prune it now that it's been cut in order to define and encourage the right growth habit. Either way, have fun! Plants are a wonderful microcosm of life.. it'll fight to live and sometimes you can't kill it even when you want, but do something like give it the wrong soil and it won't grow at all.  Go figure.


Thank you.. appreciate those thoughts! I'm probably somewhere in between. As I said I was living in a condo for years, so I didn't have to worry about the maintenance, but have recently, since buying our home and having more personal time, gotten more into landscaping and gardening - or I'm trying to anyway! Unfortunately, when our homes were built 20 years ago, the builders planted a lot of trees too close to the homes, so it's been an issue. This particular guy, I think I have to accept that he's coming back.. to quote a friend, "I don't think you have a choice unless you have the nuclear codes" - we've dug it up, used chemicals, nothing matters. So, I surrendered.. but was asking on here in case it will always looks like a hot-mess or there's hope. I do think they are pretty trees and hopefully with some patience and work I can make it pretty again, but still keep it from getting to the size it was when it was hitting the house. I may post some progress on here if I need some pruning advice! Thanks again!


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## RDZed (Jul 13, 2018)

I mean, the nuclear option is cut down to a stump, drill a 3/4" hole in the stump and screw in an upside down 20 oz bottle of Gly that doses the stump for a few days. Anything outside of the mother plant might live but the main plant will die, asap.


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

RDZed said:


> I mean, the nuclear option is cut down to a stump, drill a 3/4" hole in the stump and screw in an upside down 20 oz bottle of Gly that doses the stump for a few days. Anything outside of the mother plant might live but the main plant will die, asap.


Ah - well, we haven't had a stump there since the main tree went down.. or at least we don't think so. We just had another landscaper dig it up again, and again it comes back. It's just shoots. Will those shoots ever form a normal looking plant?


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

hsvtoolfool said:


> @KarriQ, I loathe Crepe Myrtles for this exact reason...suckers and unwanted shoots in the lawn. They spread like bamboo and are impossible to manage. But they're pretty, cheap, and impossible to kill so builders always use them everywhere.
> 
> I finally won my ongoing Myrtle battle using "Crossbow" herbicide. It's a fence line killer. Just paint the myrtle leaves with a little Crossbow and diesel fuel or kerosene mixed in a cup. Carefully paint the myrtle leaves and nothing else. Crossbow kills trees, so don't get any on other plants you want to live. You may have to repeat this several times as new shoots appear, but eventually you'll kill all the roots.
> 
> Once the myrtle roots are dead, you can plant a nice Virginia Magnolia, hybrid dogwood, Japanese cherry, or some other pretty decorative tree that won't ruin your lawn and landscaping. Personally, I'd plant further from your house than your photo suggests. Crepe Myrtles, hollies, and many other "shrubs" are actually trees and should never be planted right against a building. The roots are easily large enough to cause foundation problems. There are roadside myrtles in my town which have to be almost 30 feet tall.


 Thank you for that advice! I think I'll try it. I'm not sure I can really look at this thing for 2 years and even then I'm not sure it will look very nice where it is. I totally agree - the builders planted it so close to the house, which is why we took it out initially. Thanks again!


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

hsvtoolfool said:


> @KarriQ, I loathe Crepe Myrtles for this exact reason...suckers and unwanted shoots in the lawn. They spread like bamboo and are impossible to manage. But they're pretty, cheap, and impossible to kill so builders always use them everywhere.
> 
> I finally won my ongoing Myrtle battle using "Crossbow" herbicide. It's a fence line killer. Just paint the myrtle leaves with a little Crossbow and diesel fuel or kerosene mixed in a cup. Carefully paint the myrtle leaves and nothing else. Crossbow kills trees, so don't get any on other plants you want to live. You may have to repeat this several times as new shoots appear, but eventually you'll kill all the roots.
> 
> Once the myrtle roots are dead, you can plant a nice Virginia Magnolia, hybrid dogwood, Japanese cherry, or some other pretty decorative tree that won't ruin your lawn and landscaping. Personally, I'd plant further from your house than your photo suggests. Crepe Myrtles, hollies, and many other "shrubs" are actually trees and should never be planted right against a building. The roots are easily large enough to cause foundation problems. There are roadside myrtles in my town which have to be almost 30 feet tall.


Hi @hsvtoolfool - this is the current state after taking your advice. Think I should dig it up now or leave it longer? Thanks!!


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

Cut it down to the ground for now to get rid of the ugly. More suckers will appear next Spring that you will nuke again...and again. Eventually, they'll play out and you'll know the roots are dead. You can probably plant something a little further away from the house late next Spring. Just keep an eye out on the area for the next few years and be careful when you apply Crossbow near plants you want to keep. It's taken me about 3 years to nuke a myrtle that was in my lawn. I just spotted a tiny sucker in my lawn this week, which is the first one I've seen in about a year. They're an alien life form!


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

I just looked at your photo again, and all those not-dead shoots must also be nuked. Each shoot will grow an entire tree eventually. Just be patient. The bulk of the work is over. It's impossible to dig up all the roots, so don't bother trying. You miss the tiniest root 3 feet down, and it will grow a myrtle. So just keep nuking any shoots which appear.


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

hsvtoolfool said:


> I just looked at your photo again, and all those not-dead shoots must also be nuked. Each shoot will grow an entire tree eventually. Just be patient. The bulk of the work is over. It's impossible to dig up all the roots, so don't bother trying. You miss the tiniest root 3 feet down, and it will grow a myrtle. So just keep nuking any shoots which appear.


Oh my, they are evil! Thanks so much for the advice. I will keep at it! Really appreciate it.. there was so little advice online. Hope yours stays dead!!


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

You're welcome! I'm confident that my lawn myrtle shoots are now controlled. I use a reel mower which won't cut the suckers after they get above 2" tall. As we engineers say, that's a "feature" not a "bug". So I let the suckers grow up to about 3" tall and have several leaves well above my bermuda. Then I carefully paint the leaves with my Crossbow mix and avoid touching the grass. The sucker and its parent roots are dead in a day or two and I never see another shoot in that area.

My "myrtle massacre" has been ongoing so long because I foolishly didn't kill the stump before it was ground up. Unfortunately, this was a very large myrtle tree and the roots spanned a 10 foot radius around the trunk and were very deep. I should have drilled holes in the stump and poured stump killer and Crossbow into the root ball a year before I began my lawn remodel. That probably would have killed the entire root system.

Instead, Mr Dumdum here thought that the digging and trenching alone would tear up the roots and kill them. Hah! So I ground and dug out the big roots, then tore the entire root system to shreds while replacing my rocky, trashy topsoil and trenching my irrigation system. What's been coming back like Freddie Kruger are from orphaned root pieces that were probably 12" to 18" deep. It's just insane that a myrtle root can store enough energy to seek sunlight from 12" deep over 2 years later.

The mytle suckers which are the biggest pain appear in the middle of a bush you want to keep. Beside the lawn suckers from myrtle #1, I've also been dealing with myrtle #2 which shoots up in a mulch bed full of butterfly bushes. In this case, I let the myrtle shoot grow above the bush so that's it's really obvious. I then cover the nearby bushes with plastic for a few hours until the Crossbow dries. Then I paint the myrtle leaves as far into the bush as I can safely go without touching the good plants. So far, I haven't harmed any buttlefly bushes and the myrtle shoots appear less often.

But everybody loves Crepe Myrtles when they bloom. Even me. I just don't want them near my landscaping.


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## KarriQ (Jul 28, 2019)

hsvtoolfool said:


> You're welcome! I'm confident that my lawn myrtle shoots are now controlled. I use a reel mower which won't cut the suckers after they get above 2" tall. As we engineers say, that's a "feature" not a "bug". So I let the suckers grow up to about 3" tall and have several leaves well above my bermuda. Then I carefully paint the leaves with my Crossbow mix and avoid touching the grass. The sucker and its parent roots are dead in a day or two and I never see another shoot in that area.
> 
> My "myrtle massacre" has been ongoing so long because I foolishly didn't kill the stump before it was ground up. Unfortunately, this was a very large myrtle tree and the roots spanned a 10 foot radius around the trunk and were very deep. I should have drilled holes in the stump and poured stump killer and Crossbow into the root ball a year before I began my lawn remodel. That probably would have killed the entire root system.
> 
> ...


ha.. i work in IT as well, so I know that quote!  WE did the same thing... had a big tree removed and stump ground.. had no idea that myrtles did that. It was a while after too - crazy they don't die from lack of sun. I'll keep doing what you do.. hopefully it eventually goes away for good! Thanks again!


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## cliftonite (Aug 15, 2019)

We are thinking about planting some Crape Myrtle's to bring in some color. Based on what you guys are saying I wonder if we should avoid them.


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## corneliani (Apr 2, 2019)

cliftonite said:


> We are thinking about planting some Crape Myrtle's to bring in some color. Based on what you guys are saying I wonder if we should avoid them.


Don't let that be the takeaway from this thread. If anything let it confirm that every plant has its place and location in a landscape, each with their pros/cons. Choose the right cultivar and plant it in an appropriate location.

Crape Myrtles flank corners of landscapes beautifully, especially if you work some landscape lighting underneath them. The tree varieties give you plenty of headroom and the canopy gives perfect shade, not to mention the potential for year-round flowers. It's an elegant tree with its meandering trunklines.. and the peeling bark adds some nice interest. It flows naturally when set against a natural backdrop such as stone or cedar shake, or surrounded by liriope in a manicured landscape.

BUT...plant the wrong variety for the space and you'll find yourself back on this thread reading about how to get rid of one.

<I've gotten a bit dramatic haven't I :lol:>


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## hsvtoolfool (Jul 23, 2018)

corneliani said:


> Don't let that be the takeaway from this thread.


I agree 100%! I hope you understand I'm mostly joking with my silly rants. My favorite path in Auburn back in the 1980s was near the old IE building at the edge of campus. The sidewalk was lined with ancient 20-foot tall Crepe Myrtles. They formed a cool shaded tunnel for my walk back to Little Henry's Apartments. That's all gone now no doubt.

Anyway, Crepe Myrtles are a nice choice for new homeowners, builders, and highway departments. They're very petty and extremely difficult to kill by accident. It's just that you learn from mistakes, and I'll never use another myrtle around my lawn or mulch beds again.

I have a personal list of trees that I believe are over-used or inappropriate for small, manicured lawns in a neighborhood: Crepe Myrtle (pretty, permanent, and spreads), Bradford Pear (pretty, but weak), Magnolia grandiflora (trashy, pain to mow around), Maples (shallow roots), Holly (owie! stickers!), and so forth.


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