Center Stage® Red Crape Myrtle

If you are confused by the abundance of dark-leaf crape myrtles, then the Center Stage® Red Crape Myrtle could bring clarity. After trialing many different varieties, this one came out on top, for consistent color and disease resistance. Always clean and glossy, through the heat and humidity of summer, say goodbye to those dusty old varieties, plagued by powdery mildew. Plus, and it’s a big plus, this plant has brilliant red flowers all summer long, adding a vibrant splash to your summer garden, and looking fantastic against those dark leaves. With up to 50 blooms in each 8-inch flower cluster, you are assured of blooms through summer and into the fall. This is a smaller variety, great for smaller spaces, with a strong vertical form, rising over a few years to be 6 feet tall and eventually perhaps reaching 12 feet. Yet it remains slender and shrub-like, never more than 8 feet wide. So slip it into that awkward gap in your shrub beds, or plant it out on the lawn. Grow it against the walls of your home, or plant it as a striking screen, which stays neat and upright with little pruning needed. Let this great plant take center stage in your garden, and show you how much it can do to bring you a colorful summer.

• Deep red leaves stay colorful all summer long
• Vibrant red flowers throw a party in your garden
• Slender, vertical form and shrubby, not tree-like
• Disease resistant foliage stays clean and glossy
• Thrives in hot and dry places, and in humidity too

Plant the Center Stage® Red Crape Myrtle in full sun – even a small amount of shade reduces blooming in crape myrtles. Grow it in any well-drained soil, and that includes poorer, sandy and rocky soils, as well as clay soils. Deer don’t eat it, it rarely has pests, and it is resistant to powdery mildew (Erisyphe). Because it has a naturally bushy habit, it rarely needs any pruning. If you do want to prune, do it in early spring, before new growth begins. Flowers form on the new stems of the season.