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 Post subject: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:34 pm 
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Last year I purchased a home that was built in 1978. I have 2 old crape myrtles. One is in a flowerbed, has had weed block placed over the root flare, dirt over that, stones over the dirt & ground cover in all that. I am in the process of carefully removing from the weed block up & I uncovered a ratsnest of tiny roots apparently trying to surface. I have pics, but i can't attach them for some reason. Anyway, I sure would appreciate help on how to proceed. Oh, there were many, many suckers that came up last year & there are evidences of lots of suckers in the past. Thanks in advance for suggestions!


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 Post subject: Re: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 9:58 pm 
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If you open your photos in an editing program or even in the Microsoft photo viewer, you should be able to reduce the size. The system here is picky about the size of the photos. You could also host them someplace else like Flickr or Picasa and post a link.

Often those upper roots form as a response to being buried. They're called "adventitious" and can be pruned away. Here is an example:

Image

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 Post subject: Re: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:15 pm 
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Still couldn't get a pic posted - probably user error, but thank you for the input - I'm going to try pruning off all the hairlike roots growing on top. YIKES! :)


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 Post subject: Re: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:41 pm 
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Send me a note via the message (pm) system here and I'll give you my email. You can send them to me and I'll put them up.

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 Post subject: Re: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:04 am 
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Here are the photos from Butterfly56:

Image 1

Attachment:
Crape-Myrtle-flare-1a.jpg
Crape-Myrtle-flare-1a.jpg [ 306.08 KiB | Viewed 22108 times ]


Image 2

This is where the adventitious roots show, on the right side. Those can be carefully trimmed off. This was the plant trying to breathe under the layers of plastic. The root flares are beautiful! You have some more work to do, the flare on crape myrtle are very pronounced. I'd guess you have another inch or two deep that can be carefully pulled back from the base of the plant.

Attachment:
Crape-Myrtle-flare-2a.jpg
Crape-Myrtle-flare-2a.jpg [ 356.67 KiB | Viewed 22108 times ]


Image 3 - entire plant

Attachment:
CrapeMyrtle-whole-tree-3a.jpg
CrapeMyrtle-whole-tree-3a.jpg [ 284.5 KiB | Viewed 22108 times ]


This is an image from Howard's newsletter on crape myrtle root flares, and shows an ideal flare:

Image

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 Post subject: Re: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:56 pm 
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You can see on the photo of the full plant that the previous owners of the house cut off the top of the plant, probably regularly. This is unnecessary.

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 Post subject: Re: Help for my Crape
PostPosted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 6:27 am 
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Thank you so very much for the help - I'm still working on it - definately a "work in progress."


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