When did crepe myrtles take over?

California, too. I love them. We have them in so many shades of red, pink, fuchsia, and white. They start blooming in mid June and last almost through September. I don't know if they're a new phenomenon. I can't recall from childhood. I grew up in the area.

I think they're beautiful. Planted one in my garden 10 years ago. Has never flowered.

I got one!

It's because they're heat and drought resistant so are being promoted worldwide by horticulturalists on the back of new hybrids. But it's become a case of overkill. (Same with the awful Canadian red maples as street trees, which are being flogged for the same reasons over elms and the London plane.) Personally I think the crepe myrtles coarse, charmless, AND garish. A backlash is surely coming. I think because councils are planting them en mass in crapper areas they will gain a reputation as a Disney tree of the poor, and then no one will want them. There's far nicer and more elegant flowering trees.

It's CRAPE MYRTLE, you filthy cretins!

I like them, they remind me of my youth in Texas. Can't grow them up here in NY though.

I love them. Glad to see Magnolia trees spreading all along the East

They were all over North Carolina but yes, all almost everywhere now.

R4, you are the annoying type people love to despise

I haven't seen any in my neighborhood, but I would enjoy it as an addition to the Catalpas, which have beautiful leaves and white flowers, but drop enormous bean pods, and the Linden trees which are everywhere, and smell wonderful, but send my allergies into overdrive.

Hail, Satan, there are no cottonwoods in my neighborhood.

I prefer crepe suzette.

r11 is Ethel Mertz.

Although even Ethel would know its CREPES Suzette.

I live in a townhouse (in the L.A. suburbs) with a postage-stamp front yard. I have a great pink crape myrtle, and just outside my wall is a HUGE (like 30-foot-tall) Chinese silk floss tree. So when both are blooming, it's an abundance of pink everywhere.

They’re the new Rose of Sharon.

Bay Area here. We have several of them across the street and they’re very messy. Constant dropping of branches/leaves. Something about them seems trashy.

You seem high strung

We have a bunch of crape myrtles in our yard, and a flowering pear tree and magnolia too. I love them!

Great if well pruned which doesn't happen when they are a filler shrub. In my area so many have dead and bleached out upper branches with a scraggily bunch of foliage/flowers near the base.

What's the difference between a Rose of Sharon and a hibiscus?

They are one of my favorite trees. There are a lot in my area.

We have different experiences, OP. I moved to Florida as a child in 1961 and they were everywhere. We had a number on our property - they were pink/rose.

They weren't the most popular flower trees because they didn't do well once cut from the tree - they'd fall apart easily and make a mess on the floor/ground. But they were beautiful in place and they didn't get too big. We had so many different trees, bushes and flowers including magnolia trees. Though we had gardeners come at least once a month for maintenance work we kids had to help my dad when he did more regular gardening and we hated it. And, no, there were no leaf blowers back then. There were rakes. Blister making rakes.

R19 Rose of Sharon is a variety of hibiscus

I wonder if those who love Magnolias have had to actually deal with them over a long period. One is ok in the middle of a large yard but they drop lots of big leaves that are hard to pick up and huge hand grenade seed pods. Most of my neighbors have gotten rid of them.

Yes, we know, but Americans still love magnolias

Better than the prone-to-splitting Bradford Pear that smells like bleach/cum when it blooms.

Ewwww

I fucking loathe them.

R6 Then you have a Black Thumb. They fuckling line the streets in my friend's town in Rockland County. It was like being in a Twilight Zone episode, where you expect the trees to start dragging the townsfolk down onto the earth.

My house had a bradford pear in the backyard that eventually split in two during a storm and three crape myrtles planted two closed to the front of my house.

Chainsawed all four. Hate both those trees that were the darlings of the developers middle of the '80s when my house was built.

I also chainsawed two elaeagnus and three huge hollies, all planted too close to the house by the homebuilder.

I still treasure my Magnolia Queen sash.

I pulled mine out, two planted by a previous owner-they are messy fuckers that leave vast amounts of slimy gunk all over lawns, sidewalks, and patios.

Yes as a child slave raker I can attest to what a PITA magnolia trees were. I couldn't even appreciate the flowers as they were usually above my height.

We also had camellia and gardenia bushes and they were lovely. My mom would caution us not to touch the gardenia petals - something about turning them brown. WTF.

Not a fan, but I don’t hate them. They seem rather basic, not much of a challenge (at least where I live). Northern California.

Trees should be challenging? How do they challenge?

Sick-a lookin' at 'em.

They're vulgar retina irritants: the crass equivalent of a lurid t-shirt, which is why the poors love them. You won't find them in any stylish garden, where the goal is visual quiet, not visual screaming. Pruning makes them even uglier.

The flowers don't impress me, but the bark on well-grown ones is quite attractive. They are not hardy in my region.

R36 sounds insufferable, supremely annoying

Geez R36 arent you a big old snob

And r36 wonders why people despise him

I love bougainvillea so I’m ok with crepe myrtle as an easier-to-grow substitute.

We had nothing but fruitless mulberries and scraggly pine trees back in the day.

climate change OP

Down South they are as common as pigs in Poland!

Trailer park trees -- that's what they've become.

Alligator will be in NYC by mid century

Tundra resident: I lust after Crepe Myrtles for zone 4

[quote]Trailer park trees -- that's what they've become.

Exactly. The floral equivalent of Ailanthus altissima – ghetto palms. I'm pleased to see a few on the thread are upset. Good. When it comes to excluding coarse plants, snobbery is perfectly fine. The less there is of these, the better.

[quote]Tundra resident: I lust after Crepe Myrtles for zone 4

Plant lilac. You're spoilt for varieties. And there's fragrance!

R47 l love lilacs and have several varieties in my garden, I just wish they bloomed longer, only a couple of weeks. The green foliage is pretty blah.

They's banquette trees in seedy New Orleans neighborhoods.

I had no idea crape myrtles were not OUR sort of tree. I’m so embarrassed.

One of the longest running gay charity events in the country held the last weekend of July every year in Raleigh, NC is called the Crape Myrtle Festival.

Thye have always been in New Jersey, especially South Jersey. Windmill palms are fine in far southern New Jersey.

Yeah well ... Raleigh ... less said the better.

You people bring to mind a gardening show I saw several years ago. The host was angry because his wife dug up and threw away all of his Red Emperor tulips because they "clashed" with the daffodils.

That's called "crape murder", R18, the poor pruning of this ubiquitous shittree.

i don't really care for them. I have them all over my property. They need constant pruning and grow really fast. They also multiply, i have to always dig up stray ones from the flower beds.

Once upon a time here someone implied they were a garden or landscape expert for the desert.

I wish I could talk to them. Our yard needs help!

The house I grew up in the South had nearly 100 year old crape myrtles. My dad hated them but my mother loved them. When I was a kid I loved the ones that were planted in a tight circle. The ground inside the circle was my favorite play place. When my mom died, my dad chopped them all down about a month later.

They resist being killed. They will put up new growth for years after being chopped down.

R14 Too many bees for me with Rose of Sharon/Hibiscus R23 Yes, I thought about planting one....but those big sticky leaves deterred me. My arborist hooked me up with a River Oak instead and it grew fast, has zero in common with Magnolia but it is lovely.

Crape myrtles are what you plant when you don't know there are better alternatives with just as much inflorescence.

Crape myrtles, when pruned from the bottom, showing the structure of the tree, can be beautiful. I love the deep, fuchsia colored one.

I only like the deep red ones -- the rest can go straight into a wood chipper!