Help Please, damaged new crape myrtle tree

Thu Apr 15, 2010 3:51 am

I planted a crape myrtle tree (well it is more like a single root with small leaf clusters) 4 weeks ago and it started forming leaves on it. It is about 1 foot tall.

Now my problem is that my dog today was running and fell on it and chopped the top half off, also I cannot find the other half. Will it still grow to a tree eventually and is there anything that I can do to help the tree along? I have been watering it and now have a more secure barrier around it.

Here is a picture, the top half of it broke off and i have found the top part, can i glue it or tape it together?

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1678/p1010454v.jpg

Thu Apr 15, 2010 10:25 am

It's not clear to me which half you have and which half you can't find...

The bottom half with the roots may or may not come back. Keep it from drying out but DON"T overwater. You don't want those roots to rot, and with few leaves to use the water, it won't need as much. If it still has some leaves left, it may make it. If it is nothing but root and some trunk, maybe not, but it's worth a try. Be patient, it's going to take awhile!

If what you have is the top half with no roots, all you can do is take one stem of that and treat it as a cutting and try to get it to root. Best at that point would be to give up and start over with a new tree.

Thu Apr 15, 2010 4:28 pm

rainbowgardener wrote:It's not clear to me which half you have and which half you can't find...

The bottom half with the roots may or may not come back. Keep it from drying out but DON"T overwater. You don't want those roots to rot, and with few leaves to use the water, it won't need as much. If it still has some leaves left, it may make it. If it is nothing but root and some trunk, maybe not, but it's worth a try. Be patient, it's going to take awhile!

If what you have is the top half with no roots, all you can do is take one stem of that and treat it as a cutting and try to get it to root. Best at that point would be to give up and start over with a new tree.

Hi rainbowgardener,

should i glue the top half to the bottom half. I attached a picture and there are still leaves on the bottom part with the roots.

Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:48 pm

Gluing top half to bottom half will accomplish nothing. The top half will still be detached from all the different circulatory systems of the plant and will still be dead.

It's like if someone got their hand cut off in an industrial accident and we tried to glue it back on. You would just have a glued on dead hand (sorry for the gruesome imagery!). These days we can re-attach hands because we can do microsurgery and reconnect all the veins, arteries, capillaries, tendons, nerves, etc. You have no way to do that for your plant.

Plant the bottom half. Take a cutting from the top half, dip in in rooting powder and plant it in moist soil inside a humidity chamber (ie a 2 liter soda bottle cut in half with the cutting planted in the bottom half and the top half reattached to be a mini greenhouse dome).

No guarantees that either half will live, but it's your best chance.

Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:01 am

thanks rainbowgardener

Fri Apr 16, 2010 3:03 am

Is there a diff. in the crape myrtle trees and bushes, or is it just in the pruning of the palnt?

Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:55 am

Yes, it is all in the pruning. It basically "wants" to be bushy and sends up lots of suckers/ shoots. If you prune all that back to a few main stems, it will get taller and more tree like. But it usually will always have a few stems, not just one trunk.

Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:07 am

thank you for the answer

Sat Apr 17, 2010 10:10 pm

the real way to 'glue' the two parts together would be grafting, which could be effective in this case (a little whip'n'tongue, perhaps), but after seeing the picture i'd probably be forced to admit that the material's too thin to do much. it's not a totally inconceivable idea, though.

Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:06 pm

You may just want to break down and purchase a 1 or 3 gallon plant to get the ball rolling a little faster on your Crepe. They do grow fast but that little cutting may take forever to get to any size. Crepe Myrtles come in all different varieties and colors. Tall 50 footers to 10' semi dwarfs to small 3 foot shrubby varieties.