Bellini® Guava Crape Myrtle

Crape myrtles have come a long way from their time as summer-flowering trees with lilac blooms, often with dusty, unsightly summer leaves. Today they come in all sizes and colors, with resistance to disease, keeping those leaves clean and glossy even in the hottest, most humid summers. Now you can grow them in your shrub beds, even in smaller gardens, and, wow, even in planter boxes. For fabulous compact varieties look no further than the Bellini® series of varieties, in many wonderful colors. For light, bright pink, the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle is a top pick, hardy even in zone 6, but thriving in the hottest places, right into zone 10. With a long bloom period, smothered for months in glorious light pink blossoms, it’s a real winner for mixed shrub beds or in planter boxes. That bright but light color glows out across your garden, brightening dull areas and bringing life and beauty wherever you plant it. Easy and trouble-free, this is a shrub that won’t tie you down with complex care, and be in bloom for months. Build your summer beds around this great color series of compact crape myrtles, and settle back for a summer of fun, color and relaxation.

Growing the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle

Size and Appearance

The Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle is a deciduous bush with a dense, shrubby form, with many branches growing from the ground. It rapidly forms a bush between 3 and 4 feet tall and about the same size across, with leaves to the ground. Every stem carries big clusters of blooms, and is covered along its length with closely-packed oval leaves. These are mid-green, leather, glossy and smooth, turning yellows and oranges when fall comes. They are small, in scale with the bush, and not much more than 1-inch long and ½ inch wide. In spring new shoots grow from all the branches, and each one produces a big cluster of blooms that lasts about 2 weeks. The flowers have hardly faded before new stems push out just below them, and those are soon in bloom. This way blooming continues from early summer right into fall. No seed pods are produced, so blooms just keep on coming. The ruffled flowers have the texture of crepe paper, and they are a delicious bright, light pink – perfect anywhere in your garden. You won’t believe the color boost even one bush will bring to your summer.

Using the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle in Your Garden

The neat, compact size of the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle makes it a perfect fit in a smaller garden, or in more intimate parts of a larger one. Plant it in beds close to the front, or along a low fence. Use it as an accent or to line a pathway. Grow it in planter boxes or beside your terrace – the options are never-ending. From zone 8 it is perfect in planter boxes, and even in colder zones potted plants can be kept in a cold shed in winter – they don’t need light.

Hardiness

In zones 7 to 10 the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle will thrive, and it enjoys the southern sun, heat and humidity. It grows in zone 6 too, where it may suffer some winter injury, but come bouncing back in spring, blooming just as prolifically, and growing just 2 or 3 feet tall in the season. In zone 6 a mulch of bark or straw around the base is a good idea. Pull the mulch back in spring, and wait until new growth sprouts before removing any winter-killed branches. Plants in pots and boxes can be left outdoors all winter in zones 8, 9 and 10. In colder zones you can store them for winter in a cold garage or shed. They don’t need light, but it must be cold – around freezing, but not much colder.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Grow the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle in full sun. Even a little shade reduces flowering significantly. Any well-drained soil will support it, even poor soils such as we find in many urban gardens. Once well-established it is drought resistant, but a deep soak from time to time during the heat of summer will keep it blooming like crazy.

Maintenance and Pruning

Pest problems are few or absent with the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle, and it doesn’t become dusty and gray with powdery mildew in summer. It also isn’t bothered by deer. It doesn’t set seed either, so deadheading just became optional – a great saving on your busy schedule. Some spring fertilizer for garden plants, and regular liquid feeding for plants in containers will keep your bush growing well. A trim in spring, shortening back branches of the previous year, is all the attention it needs. Never trim new growth – that will reduce or eliminate flowering.

History and Origin of the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle

The original crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, has been grown in America for a very long time, but most older varieties are tree-like, needing hard pruning each year to keep them as bushes. An old variety, popular in the south for many years, is ‘Twilight’, a tall, tree-like plant with purple blooms. In 2015 Mike Farrow, a specialist breeder who graduated from the University of Maryland before setting up his own business in Earleville, Maryland, collected seeds from a bush of ‘Twilight’. This is an older variety with purple flowers discovered in Texas in 1957. He grew a big batch of seedlings and studied them carefully. One stood out, with a rounded, dwarf habit and glorious pink blooms. He named it `Bellaggua`, and in 2021 was granted a patent on his invention. He added it to other dwarf varieties he had created, and through Star® Roses and Plants it became the color Guava in his Bellini® series of dwarf crape myrtles.

Buying the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle at the Tree Center

Every garden, big or small, can be a home for the Bellini Guava Crape Myrtle. The product of skilled American plant breeding, it’s the missing ingredient in your garden cocktail. Fill that gap and order now – these great compact bushes can’t wait to get out and grow for our clients, so don’t hesitate or it could be too late.