...tree magic, murder, and rising from the dirt...

As long as I can remember, I have loved trees. One of my favorite ornamental trees is the Lagerstroemia, commonly known as the crape myrtle or crepe myrtle. These are popular trees in the American South. 

Ebony & Ivory Crape Myrtle

As the story goes, as they made their way from China and arrived in England in 1759, they were met with lackluster enthusiasm for the crape myrtles would not bloom. It seems that England just isn’t hot enough to get crape myrtles to bloom; but, the American South is.

The botanist to King Louis XVI André Michaux introduced the crape myrtle into Charleston around 1786, and the tree exploded in blooms. Crape myrtles love heat and they love humidity. They grow quickly and they’re even tolerant to drought. While some of our other Southern bloomers like the gardenia and azalea require acidic soil, crape myrtles don’t seem to care what they’re given. Clearly they were a hit in Charleston and Southerners gossip so they ended up all across the South after that.

Crape myrtles need to be cut back annually to allow for new growth and blooms for the next year. How much these need to be cut back is up for debate and Southerners are quit opinionated. One of our neighbors cuts his down to little stumps. That happens to trees on public lots as well. Many people call this “crape murder” and I happen to agree with them. No one needs to cut back a tree to that extreme so that other trees make fun of them in the winter. Seriously!

Illegally planted Crape Myrtle in 2015 wasn't receiving much sunlight

This, of course, leads to my own crape myrtle experience. In August 2011, I planted a Red Dynamite crape myrtle on our property at the old house, the townhome with the HOA (Home Owners Association), which promptly sent me a nasti-gram reading that I could not have a tree. There were no rules or regulations in our HOA paperwork about not having trees on our property but I obeyed and dug up the tree. Well, I sort of obeyed. I knew that a Red Dynamite Crape Myrtle, which grows to about 20' x 20', would grow too large for our wee backyard so instead I moved it to the common area. That was my illegal move but the community president did always talk about having trees. He just wanted to be the one who picked them.

The little tree is growing! Near the Ebony & Ivory crape myrtle

a few inches tall when transplanted in July 2018

I’m a girl who follows rules so let me explain that this was a bit out of character for me but I loved the Red Dynamite so much. And, because I lived on the end unit, I had become responsible for watering the community trees if they were going to be watered at all. I figured if I was the one taking care of the others, what would it matter if one more pretty tree was added to the mix. That isn't the best logic but that's what I did. Unfortunately, it turned out that that community area's trees outgrew the tiny crape myrtle and for much of his time he did not receive enough sun.

2018 a few months after he was transplanted he started growing like mad!

Last week! Go Red Dynamite Go!

The landscapers also repeatedly cut down the crape myrtle thinking he was a weed. That little tree was spunky and he just kept growing back. The weedwacking continued to happen all the way up until last year when we bought our current home. Just days before I planned to move him, the landscapers cut him down to inches. I was so angry then but now I'm delighted because he made it.

From the pictures, you can see that he was just a few inches high. My fella did not believe he would make it but trees are magic and I believed. He grew and he grew and within one year he is nearly 6 feet tall! Mind you, he’s an 8-year-old tree who had some pretty good roots since I always watered him.

I think we can learn so much from crape myrtles—how to keep going in adversity; how to look stunning even on 100-degree days with high humidity; how to be a little exotic but thrive where you're planted; how to be low maintenance; and, how to keep growing even when cut back. In fact, crape myrtles grow because they’re cut back. I guess I wouldn’t mind being a crape myrtle. 

Crape myrtles are like people in that they come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. While the Red Dynamite may be considered more of a traditional crape myrtle, there are numerous dark and spooky crape myrtles including the Ebony & Ivory crape myrtle, which only grows to about 10'x 8' and includes bright white blooms against black foliage. I have the Ebony & Ivory tree planted near the Red Dynamite in the perennial hibiscus garden. One day they will grow to the point of having their blooms touch one another (and further block the view of the neighbor's house). 

Recently I added a Magic Midnight crape myrtle, which will grow 4-6 ft tall in our front yard. This is a smaller crape myrtle that has purple-maroonish foliage and bright hot pink blooms. That tree is pictured at the very top beside the quote for this post. 

Crape myrtles are great tree friends and I look forward to having them for many years to come. 

...tree magic and ice storms...

It started as a pretty fantastic morning. Today was supposed to be my first day back to work for the new semester and we were having a snow day! Yes, even professors get gleeful about canceled universities. Washington, D.C. has much more snow than we do in the Richmond, VA area, where we have mostly ice. I woke this morning early because even though my fella was teleworking, he needed to be up-and-at-em. 

I peeped out the window to see if we had any more snow. What’s that big blob in the yard? Oh no, a fallen limb. It was much too dark to see how much damage there was but I quickly headed out on our front porch to survey the damage in the dark. I could see a large branch had snapped from one of our pines. As I headed over to the side of the house through the garage, I discovered another large branch. Later in the morning, I saw that a third large branch had fallen from another pine and crashed down on our picket fence and new baby crape myrtle. Oh no! Yet, aside from the snapped branches, there was no damage. Just.Like.Magic.

These branches were too heavy for me to move alone. Not only were they large but they were blocks of ice. My fella and I worked together to move them off to the side of the yard. Fortunately, we had a tree service out just last week to remove a few ominous too-close-to-the-roof branches. We will have to have them out again because now we have some dangling broken limbs. Friends and family have advised us to chop down the trees. Not happening, kids. Do you know how long I waited for my very own piece of land with trees! What I have not written about yet is the magical copse in our backyard. Well, in my …blood, sweat, tears, and black mulch… post, I shared that we have 0.35 acres of land, a third of which includes a copse of trees: tall pines, an oak, two sweet gum trees, crape myrtles and shrubs as large as trees including red tip photinia and Rose of Sharon. I added two baby crape myrtles including a red dynamite and an ebony and ivory. When we purchased the property, the backyard copse area was filled with ivy. I worked as long and as hard as I could; honestly, I’m still pulling up new vines and killing the stuff that is coming back even after we hired landscapers to clean out the poison ivy and English ivy that had overtaken the backyard copse. The ivy had wrapped itself so high up the trees that I feared they would smother. The vines on all of the trees were cut up to 6 ft and the vines above slowly died and are falling off the trunks still.

Backyard copse ivy and all.

In August, only a month after moving to our new home, a storm blew in and while I was sitting on our back porch, I heard a loud crack and watched a tree come down... perfectly in our copse. It dodged every other tree and shrub landing inches from the Rose of Sharon by the road.  Talk about magic!

I love trees. For my 18^th birthday, one of my friends gave me a tree because she knew it would be the best gift ever. It still lives on in the yard of my childhood home. When I walk through our copse or in our front and side yards, I touch the trees often. I talk to them always. “You okay? Did that mean ol’ ice hurt you?”… and, “aren’t you a beautiful tree.” They are living beings. Some of them will outlive me. I want to be kind to them just as they are so good to us.

My fella shoveling the secret brick path.

We will trim branches to protect ourselves, the trees, and our neighbors; and, we will make sure that those branches that snapped are tended to. We will not remove trees unless we absolutely have to.

Also, that magical copse, well, we knew the copse on our property was magical. We had no idea that it was brick-path-magical though. My fella shoveled and raked to free part of the bricks only to discover old solar lights, a lattice, and more brick borders. We ended up with a trail right through the woods. Just like magic.