Crepe Myrtle

Thirty-three listings, and fewer plants than that. Natchez accounts for five of them, Zuni for three and Biloxi for two, because the farms train one cultivar several ways and list each form separately. Read the form in the title before you read the colour.

The Indian Summer hybrids

Eleven cultivars here come from the US National Arboretum crosses of Lagerstroemia indica with L. fauriei. Natchez, Biloxi and Tuscarora are the taller vase shaped ones. Sioux, Comanche, Lipan and Yuma work through the middle. Zuni is the mid sized substitute for gardens where Natchez would grow too tall, Acoma spreads wider than it stands, and Tonto and Hopi are the semi dwarfs. A twelfth listing is called simply Indian Summer. That is the group name rather than a cultivar, so confirm which selection is in the pot before you build a colour scheme around it.

Dark leaf, and the same catch

Diamonds in the Dark runs to five listings: Pure White, Red Hot, Shell Pink, Diamonds in the Dark Crimson Red and an unnamed base listing supplied in 300L. The series was bred for foliage before flower and the plants are hard to tell apart out of bloom, so that base listing carries the same warning. Three Magic series listings follow. Moonlight Magic puts white flower over near black leaf, Twilight Magic deep purple over the same, and Ruffled Red Magic is green leaved, so there is no leaf contrast at all.

Bought for the trunk

Three listings carry Lagerstroemia fauriei in the title rather than a hybrid name: Kiowa, Townhouse and Fantasy. Finer white flowers, cinnamon to mahogany bark that peels away in sheets, an upright vase crown. Start here if the winter trunk is the point. Townhouse comes in 45L and nothing else.

Two listings sit outside those groups. Lagerstroemia indica is the straight species, seed grown, so flower colour varies plant to plant across pink, mauve and white, and it is the mildew prone one the hybrids were bred to improve on. Order a matched row out of one batch. Enduring Summer Red is the repeat flowering selection, on a smaller frame than the Indian Summer trees.

Which grade to buy

Five listings start at 140mm, about one and a half litres: Natchez, Biloxi, Lipan, Acoma and Hopi. Across the whole range, 400mm and 200L are each offered on seventeen listings, and 45L and 300mm on fifteen. A 400mm pot holds close to 35 litres. Seven listings never come smaller than 45L, among them Townhouse, Zuni Bush form in 600L, and both Natchez multi stem lines. Bare root appears twice, on Comanche and on Natchez Bush form. It is lifted dormant in winter and wants prepared ground on arrival.

If it has to be Natchez

The base listing runs from 140mm through to 1500L, a wider span than anything else here. Tree form is a single clear trunk, from 200mm. Bush form is several stems rising from ground level, from 300mm. Multi trunk is one tree trained low so that three or more permanent leaders rise from near the ground, in 200L and 500L only. Multi planted is several young plants set together in one container, 200L to 500L. The last two photograph almost identically and are not the same thing.

Everything on this page is deciduous, so anyone after a screen that still works in July wants privacy screening instead. Lagerstroemia speciosa, the Queens crepe myrtle, is the tropical species, and frost knocks it back. The guide keeps it to far north Queensland, and its own page reaches no further south than Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast and the warm northern New South Wales coast. Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Ballarat, Adelaide, the Adelaide Hills and Perth all want a hybrid from the groups above. Pruning, spacing and mildew are handled in the crepe myrtle guide.