Another pic.

Yup.....that is what I would do....take away the box and add soil grading it away at a gentle slope..
Don't add soil on top of where the box was (ie near the trunk base) or you risk smothering the roots at the surface.....
Ian

Kelly, my crepes are not having the best year flower wise but have good looking foliage still. Is yours a bit thin or are most that way this late in the year down there.

Attractive trunk btw.

The tree is located in eastern Kaufman county in Elmo Texas (about 3 miles from the border with neighboring Van Zandt county). This year (as with last year) the hordes of grasshoppers have been biblical. What you are seeing on the crepe is denudation of the leaves as a result of the grasshoppers eating them. It is so bad that many of my oak trees have lost 60-70% of their leaves because the damned grasshoppers are munching them. I have no idea how to deal with these grasshoppers. there are billions and billions, literally a plague.

I hope that everyone in the habit of hacking away at their poor crape myrtles every year sees this image of what these trees are supposed to look like.

At least the 'beautiful bones ' are beautiful...it does look pretty puny, as far as the foliage goes.

Much better than the typical multistemmed crepes I see around here.

remove wood..

ignore...

do NOT add anything... some way or another.. you will bury what should not be ...

the soil is not going to sift out from under it ...

is that landscape cloth??? remove it..

ken

I totally agree with Ken about your crApe myrtle. Remove wood, maybe rake a little loose dirt from around the edge of the bed to smooth things out, remove landscape fabric, then go in and cook yourself a nice crEpe to celebrate.