Crape myrtle has triple the leaves after giving miracle gro food?

9 years ago

I got a crape myrtle about 6 weeks ago, it is very small.
It had 2 trunks but one broke off and then 3 more shot up.
I recently gave it some miracle grow plant food and now the stems have triple the leaf growth they had before.
There is the big leaves that were already there and now there are TONS of new leaves coming in too!

The miracle grow plant food is truly a miracle!

I hope they make it through winter.

Comments (8)

Toronado3800 Zone 6 St Louis
9 years ago
No more late season fertilizer. It will encourage late growth which are likely to be damaged by frosts.
brandon7 TN_zone7
9 years ago
It sounds like your plant may have been nutrient starved to start with. Miracle grow is a fast-release fertilizer, but is not miraculous. Besides fertilizer, it sounds like your plant might also be responding like plants normally do when they loose branches/foliage. New growth, fueled by stored food/energy, is often triggered by events similar to what you describe.
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User
9 years ago
need,
If your crape myrtle is a tree variety, don't ever give it
plant food again.
The growth will be fast and weak. The tree will literally grow fast and sooo weak that it will break over in a storm.
No fertilizer for trees.
If it is a small bush crape myrtle, it is fine to give it the plant food.
You posted this in the tree forum.
No Miracle Grow on trees.
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
9 years ago
Butterfly, what is your theory behind your statement? Makes no sense.

Needinfo, accelerated growth is not a good thing for your crape myrtle, or any plant for that matter. Certainly not this time of year.
gregorywoodl
9 years ago
Mr. Brandon7 is exactly correct.
When we transplant crapemyrtles from small containers to larger containers we sometimes have to root-prune poorly developed root systems; this tends to make them sad and results in full defoliation. Since we are a container farm we use pine-bark as our planting medium, but, we do not fertilize the trees when we transplant them. Despite the lack of fertilizer, within a 3 - 6 week period the tree will breakout with new leaves, usually 3-4 per leaf-node. We then add fertilize based on the time of year (No fertilizer after mid summer).
arthurm
9 years ago
Guys, you have murdered the english language, now you are working on changing crepe myrtle into crape myrtle.
Anyway, I agree re. feeding. No special feeding on mine nor the ones down the golf course, they get by on very little.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
CMs .. see how i avoid nomenclature murder.. lol ...

do they really grow this fast ... to put up 3 new trunks AND heavy leaf grow ... 6 weeks after transplanting in the worst part of the year.. august????

w/o pix.. it almost sounds like a free advert for MG

in my z5 MI ... if anything was growing this lushly.. in mid sept ... i would fear for lack of proper hardening off .. perhaps that is irrelevant for Ark ....

kn
brandon7 TN_zone7
9 years ago
"Guys, you have murdered the (E)nglish language, now you are working on changing crepe myrtle into crape myrtle."

Was that a joke or do you really not know any better?

Sometimes, sarcasm is hard for me to detect. Maybe that's what Arthurm was up to.

This post was edited by brandon7 on Mon, Sep 8, 14 at 19:00