crepe myrtles

I love, love my crepe myrtle! And yes, I know pics of this has been on my blogs before :) ...you can simply ignore this post if you want! :) But this is what I've been looking at out my kitchen window since the end of June.

And, no, I don't get tired of it! Myrtles come in four different colors and one just recently came out with a burgundy leaf color that is simply gorgeous! After its first bloom of six weeks, it has a ten day pause, then it goes into another long bloom time. Two years ago, this shrub gave me a baby so now I have two of these. This one is six years old...I bought it at a year-end sale at a nursery without knowing its color for, I think, a dollar. The first summer we lived here it looked like this...

Yes, it's that teeny tiny shrub in that curved area by the first porch post. Amazing, isn't it?! I'm will be doing a few before/afters of outside changes on my other bog in the near future. Today, it looks like this...

Another amazing! It's a fast growing shrub so give it LOTS of room - DO NOT make the bad decision of planting it close to the house or crowd it with other shrubs.  I prefer mine as a shrub but they can be trained as a smallish tree. I've had a crepe myrtle shrub at our Mt Vernon house as well and in the many years I've had it, it froze out twice in an extremely cold winter but it does grow out again.

These was taken on a 'glowy' evening at sunset.

In the fall, it puts this show on...

Simply beautiful!

I consider crepe myrtles a must-have, giving a huge bang for the buck. Often, September and October are bargain days at landscaping and nurseries for end-of-season buys with huge savings. But of course, if one doesn't want to take the chance of missing a buy, they can be bought for around fifteen dollars. They are cheaper now than what they were when I bought my first one.

In case you haven't become a believer of the lovely crepe mrytles, here are a few more pics! :)

It's very obvious God LOVES beauty, one only needs to look at nature!

...happy gardening!

ox