PlantFiles: Japanese Crepe Myrtle, Crape Myrtle
Lagerstroemia x fauriei 'Natchez'

Absolutely a beautiful tree! Give one plenty of room. Ours is 9 years old; 20 ft tall & 20 ft wide. The light brown bark peels in sheets to revel the most beautiful cinnamon bark underneath. The flowerheads are so large that the branches hang to create a wonderful true "umbrella shape". We were told by the landscaper from whom we bought the tree, not to trim any branches off except for unwanted ground suckers, until the 5th year, and we waited. Then over the last 3 years we trimmed it slowly up in levels to the 10 foot height. It is stunning and now has beautiful summer and WINTER shape. The shape is natural looking and now gives our landscape real height and structure. Just trim off the little trunk branches periodically to maintain the shape. Enjoy!!!!

'Natchez' is growing well in sandy loam with full sun to dappled shade in Philomath, Oregon (zone 7b). Our climate is rainy from October to May, with no summer rain. The tree is located in a irrigated perennial bed. Doing very well, no mildew or other diseases.

The white flowers makes it the most attractive Crepe Myrtle and most versatile, in my opinion. It pairs well with any color bloom. The bark is stunning, and especially lovely in winter. Trained into three main trunks, it's very graceful in any season.

One of my favorite crepes -- love the larger leaves, interesting bark, and bright white flowers.

Burleson is the Crepe Myrtle capital of Texas

The most beautiful of Natchez and Lagerstroemia indica can be seen in Savannah, Georgia. Many of them tower over the roofs of the two story tall houses throughout the historic district. Some specimens in the Savannah area are over 40' tall, with an astronomical amount of blooms! If you are planning on planting one of these "tree" Crapes, make sure you give them plenty of room, at least 15' from any structure.

I grew two of these trees in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, and my son, who owns this property, occasionally sends me e-mail pictures of these trees, as they are fast growers, to 30 feet, and can be spectacular looking when covered in blooms. Natchez is one of the most mildew-resistant cultivars of crape myrtles and is one of the many varieties developed by the National Arboretum, all of which varieties are named for Indian Tribes. They are hybrids of L. indica and L. fauriei.

The largest and most beautiful specimens of Natchez I have ever seen are growing over the patio in front of the gift shop at famed Calloway Gardens, in Pine Mountain, Georgia. Seeing the height Natchez can reach--most crape mystles are small trees, and some are really just shrubs--and the unusual peeling red bark, sent me on a search for Natchez trees, which I then found often cost much more than other crape myrtles in plant nurseries.

These trees should never be drastically pruned, as this hinders their development into a tall and spectacularly spreading tree. The peeling red bark is quite dramatic, and the white flowers go with any landscaping color scheme. I love all crape myrtle colors, but some of the intensely bright pink ones often clash, to my eye, with other flowers.

The Natchez trees in my son's yard are planted in shrub and flower borders and are tall enough to be underplanted with various bulbs and perennials--very early purple Dutch iris and white crocus, and later white hyacinths and yellow daffodils. Perennial maroon hollyhocks and purple drumstick alliums provide color in the summer. In the fall my son dumps shredded oak leaves in the beds that he picks up with his large bagging lawn mower, and the decomposing leaf mulch is just about all the "fertilizer" these plants ever get or need.

Just yesterday I acquired a baby Natchez from a friend's yard. It was about eight feet tall, and was a sucker from a 20 foot tall mother plant whose peeling bark is a really deep red this time of year. This sucker had come up about 10 feet from the mother tree, and there was a long, thick root connecting them underground.

Once I got it home, I trimmed back the roots of my young plant, and also trimmed back to just the three tallest leaders, and cut off all of the remaining leaves on the tips, and planted it in my sunniest new flower bed, with a tall stake to keep it upright in the wind. I was outside past dark last night--fortunately I have a strong outdoor light--trying to get this plant into the ground, because I'm so anxious to have it survive in its new home.

This large new flower bed has some high and low spots, so it is a mixture of plants--some like wetter conditions than others, and the water lovers are grouped together down at one low end. The new Natchez is on a high spot, but all of this bed is very well drained, as my Northcentral Florida, zone 8b soil is a sandy loam. I've already planted some wine-red day lilies, a few white ginger lilies, one white cat's whiskers, some blue-purple salvia and some gold lantana, so the white flowers and deep red color of the peeling bark of Natchez will fit right in. Now I'm looking for some pink flowered crape myrtle for my new "cream and pink" bed, which so far has just a few plants.

The bark of this Crape Myrtle has cinnamon colored patches, making it stand out amongst the Crapes. The only somewhat disappointing thing is the white flowers - the bright blooms of most other Crapes is their advantage.