Tag Archives: crape myrtle

Color My World

Fall is my favorite season. Fall is when the weather finally starts to change reminding us that the miserable heat and humidity of summer will actually come to an end. I also love the color provided by the changing of the leaves. Sadly, we live far enough south that we don’t get much color; we have a lot of evergreens and the leaves on the non-evergreens tend to just turn brown and fall off. Northern Georgia gets beautiful color, but joining the crowds of “leaf peepers” means making reservations at least a year in advance. Mostly, I just live vicariously through the photos of my fellow bloggers from the more northern climes.

However, as I look around our yard, I see that we are slowly changing things in our neck of the woods. Our crape myrtles are young, but they are doing their part to bring some color to our yard as do the forsythia.

One of our crape myrtles showing out.
Forsythia

I have had a life-long fascination with ginkgo trees due to my love of dinosaurs; fossil records indicate that ginkgos have been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth. (I recently learned that ginkgos were around before dinosaurs.) Four years ago, Kenn gifted me a ginkgo of my own which is just starting to turn the beautiful yellow they are known for.

A touch of yellow on my ginkgo.

Last fall, we planted two young Japanese maples of different varieties. When I say small, I mean small. Both trees were twigs barely a foot tall when we planted them and we weren’t sure if they would make it. However, both are doing well and while still small, they are starting to look like actual trees. I think the tree that has the red leaves of the traditional Japanese maple is going to require another year or two to come into its own. The second tree, a Japanese Sunrise, is already showing us some pretty color even though the leaves are brown-edged due to the lack of rain over the past few months.

Young Japanese Sunrise.

This year, I gifted Kenn a Flame Thrower Redbud for his birthday. However, since we didn’t want to plant it until after our road trip, I had it delivered last week and Kenn planted it the same day. While it is currently tall and skinny with big leaves, we can’t wait to see how it does over the next year. We’re hoping for spectacular color!

Our new Flame Thrower Redbud.

Do you get much fall color in your area?

Seeing Red

Crape myrtles are ubiquitous in the South. Honestly, I’m not much of a plant person, but I do like crape myrtles; they produce beautiful blooms and are extremely low maintenance. Since the blooms are available in a variety of colors, there’s something for everyone. That said, it has taken decades for me to get the red blooming crape myrtles that I’ve always wanted.

Kenn is the plant person in this relationship. When we moved into our last house, one of the first things we did was get rid of the scraggly bushes in the narrow strip of land separating our driveway from our neighbor’s driveway. Kenn said he wanted to plant crape myrtles, which was fine with me. My only request was that we get trees with red blooms instead of the pink ones that are everywhere. Kenn bought the trees, planted them, babied them, and, in turn, they presented us with fushia (aka pink) blooms. Kenn seemed surprised to learn that pink is not red.🙄

When we moved into The Cabin, another (short lived) chance for red blooming crape myrtles presented itself. The previous owners had planted a couple of white blooming crape myrtles of the Black Diamond variety. Black Diamond crape myrtles have dark purplish foliage instead of the traditional green. At that time, what we couldn’t find was a Black Diamond variety with red blooms. So, when we decided to buy additional trees, I sighed, and gave up on my dreams of red flowers and we purchased more of the white blooming Black Diamond variety. What a mistake. Neither of us was pleased with the pre-existing trees or the new ones; they just didn’t grow or bloom.

A couple of years ago, we decided to dig up the Black Diamond trees and replace them. This time, I insisted that we get a red blooming variety. We even drove around the local area while I pointed out to Kenn all of the colors that are not red. You know, things like white, pink, and lavendar. Sometimes I wonder if the man is color blind. We did some research and found the perfect red in a relatively new variety. Meet Miss Frances!

The bright red blooms with the yellow centers are exactly what I have been looking for! I smile every time I see them. Oh, and the Black Diamond trees we replaced? I would have tossed them in the gully and let them decompose. Kenn, however, moved them to another area where they basically get ignored – and they’re doing great, LOL.

Do crape myrtles grow in your area? Have you used them in your landscaping? If so, what color blooms do you prefer?