Crape Myrtle from a cutting. In early stages of development

I made several thick crape myrtle cuttings late last year. This is one of the better looking ones. It grew quite strongly, and even produced a nice batch of flowers, but I felt it was developing to the point that I should probably do some hard cut backs.




What do you guys think? Do you see some potential here?

Well, it looks like a stump. Enless potential. So, is it "Crape" or Crepe?"

Twisted Trees wrote:Well, it looks like a stump.  Enless potential.  So, is it "Crape" or Crepe?"

Hehe, I guess you're right, it is a bit of a stump. You should've seen it early this year when it was just a five inch piece of wood with no roots.  

My question is, do you like the shape of the trunk so far? Of the two possible fronts, which one looks the best? I'm basically building the tree from scratch, so I want to try to make it as appealing as possible.

Crape seems to be the more common spelling, but I think either is okay.

Can you turn it a bit more counterclock from the first photo? Maybe make the left branch a little left of center? The current front with pic 1, has a bit of a slingshot going on, you could use this front, and get rid of the middle branch. The second pic shows too much of the reverse taper.... But there could be other better angles on the other sides.

PeacefulAres wrote:

Twisted Trees wrote:Well, it looks like a stump.  Enless potential.  So, is it "Crape" or Crepe?"

My question is, do you like the shape of the trunk so far? Of the two possible fronts, which one looks the best? I'm basically building the tree from scratch, so I want to try to make it as appealing as possible.

It's so hard to tell. Let it grow a bit. Study it. Decide later. Enjoy the process. Have a cocktail.

Guys, I'll get some more pictures for you in a little bit. I put this tree in the ground to test the colander/ground method. It's budding out again, so I'll take some shots from different angles.

Was looking into starting one of these how did you start the cutting and what is your soil recipe