White Crape Myrtles

How Quickly Will My Natchez White Crape Myrtle Grow?

This Natchez white crape myrtle is ten years old.

This Natzhez white is also ten years old but it has received full sun and been allowed to spread.

Natchez White Crape Myrtles Six Years Old

Townhouse White Crape Myrtles Six Years Old

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Grove of Townhouse White Crape Myrtles Four Years Old with Canna Lilies

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Young Grove of Acoma White Crape Myrtles. Three Years Old.

Crape Myrtles are fast growing trees and Natchez is one of the fastest reaching heights of 30 to 35 feet eventually. You can expect heights of fifteen to twenty feet relatively quickly. Crape myrtles bloom on new wood and love nitrogen. Fertilize them in early March and again in mid-May or early June, just before they bloom.

Natchez White Crape Myrtle Top Three Crape Myrtles for Texas

The Natchez White Crape Myrtle is one of the most popular crape myrtles in Texas attributable to its good size for a lawn, large bloom panicles, and prolonged blooming period. This is an early bloomer and a sustained bloomer throughout the summer. This crape is among the cold hardy crapes as well.

Natchez White Crapes are often used as single trunk specimens and prized for its large snowy white panicles, one of the densest of all panicles with Tuscarora being more dense. The USDA notes Natchez White reaches 35 feet in height.

It is the canopy effect of the Natchez White Crape Myrtle that makes it an excellent candidate for a single trunk crape myrtle. You can train your Natchez White to be a single trunk tree.

As Townhouse White Crapes grow their canopy becomes more arching and weeping once the Crapes attain their full height.

Townhouse White Crape Myrtle in Summer Perennial Garden

Townhouse White Crape Myrtle reaches 20 feet. It blooms earlier than Natchez and has fluffier whiter panicles that are not pendulous but more upright. The blooming begins closer to the ground than the Natchez. There is not a perfect round canopy with a Townhouse. It is more variable as you see in this image.

As with all Indian Tribe named crapes the Natchez Crape Myrtle is a product of the New Research Branch, Agricultural Research Service, USDA derived from controlled hyrbidization of L. fauriei and a cultivar of L. indica. These hybridizations resulted in many new crape myrtles with a resistance to powdery mildew which had plagued crapes in the south.

In 1956 the seeds of L. fauriei were collected in the mountains of Yakushima, Japan. The cinnamon brown trunk found in many crapes in addition to Natchez White is attributable to the L. fauriei heritage.

Natchez White blooms (just like lavender Muskogee) are born on pendulous limbs creating a downward effect. The canopy effect sits atop the cinnamon bark.

Two years before you can see the canopy of these crapes was not quite so weeping.

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Two years later the trunks are larger and the crape canopy begins higher as well. You can see in the background the KnockOut roses have succumbed to rose / rosette disease. Many are planting dwarf crape myrtles in their place.

Natchez White Crape Myrtle Two Years Later

Natchez White Crape Myrtle in Texas

The same Natchez White Crape Myrtle two years later.

Natchez White Crape Myrtle – the spread of the crape is perfect for this corner planting.

Crape Myrtles are extremely fast growing. If you find your have a crape murdered tree and wish to restore your Natchez white to its full beauty, cut it down to the ground. Crapes in Texas grow three to five feet per year. Rather than hacking your crape as above, consider a miniature crape myrtle or the Acoma.