Young crepe myrtle with no growth and looks sickly.

[Jenndsloan]

I am very new to gardening and was pretty aggressive when I decided to plant a crepe myrtle. This is a dynamite and was originally a little over three feet. It's leaves now constantly look "shriveled" and the tree has not had any new growth since it has been planted back in May. I've uprooted it to make sure that I sufficiently loosened it's rootball and put enough compost to amend our clay soil. I babied it by watering it's base almost every other day (unless it rained). I've lightened up on the watering, to make sure I wasn't over watering it and causing it's problems. Is this normal or do I have a sickly crepe?

[rainbowgardener]

Not normal. Sounds sickly or overwatered or for some reason never sent out roots from the root ball into the surrounding soil.

Can you show us a picture? Tell us where you are located, what the conditions for the tree have been (sun exposure, soil type, weather, etc).

Welcome to the Forum! If you hang in there with us, show a picture or two and give good information, we can probably help. Often people don't stick around to do that.

[mdvaden]

Often, sticky means scale or aphids.

Just ran into similar on a willow leaf oak the other day pruning. My gloves were very sticky when finished.

[rainbowgardener]

it says sickly, not sticky.

[imafan26]

I think uprooting it may have set it back again. That kind of stress is hard on a plant that is already struggling. I am not a fan of pure compost in a planting hole. I like to mix the organic matter with the native soil and not have two different soil types. It eases the transition for the roots.

When I plant from a pot, especially a pot bound pot, I like to score the roots so they branch out into the soil otherwise the plant still thinks it is in the pot and keeps going round and stays small. I don't try to "loosen" the root ball of a healthy plant since I want to lessen transplant shock.