Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle

A tree standing on a lawn is a beautiful thing, but many of our traditional shade trees, like maples or oaks, grow too large for city gardens, and smaller suburban gardens too. Anyway, while leaves are nice, flowers are better, and you get more beauty per square foot of your garden if your shade tree doubles as a flowering tree. When you grow the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle, you certainly get flowers, smothering a beautiful smaller tree growing no more than 20 feet tall and wide. Plus, you still get the beautiful fall colors we expect from the best shade trees, because the leaves turn glorious tones of reds and oranges when fall arrives. The lovely bark is a great winter feature, making this a year-round tree – perfect when space is limited.

Growing the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle

Size and Appearance

The Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle is a small deciduous tree of fast growth, reaching 15 to 20 feet tall, with a similar spread, within 10 years. It has a handsome trunk, with pale gray bark that sheds in strips, revealing creamy tan bark underneath, creating fascinating mottled patterns. With a little attention when young it will have a single trunk, or it can be grown into a more casual form with two or three main stems. The leaves are thick and leathery, glossy and deep green, between 2 and 3 inches long. Older varieties of crape myrtle have a bad name for the unsightly powdery mildew that often develops in the summer. This makes the leaves dusty and gray. Newer varieties, including the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle, are resistant to this disease, so your tree remains fresh and green all summer long. This variety doesn’t produce suckers, so the stems remain clean and smooth, emphasizing the tree form.

Starting in late June or July, and continuing all the way through October, your tree will be covered in a profusion of blooms. Every branch carries hundreds, and the tree is a continuous blaze of color. The flowers are beautiful, with wrinkled petals that indeed do seem to be made of crepe paper, carried in large, foot-long clusters. These are strong, and don’t bend or collapse, even in heavy rainstorms, The color of the flowers is deep rose-pink to rich red, depending on temperature. Cooler weather makes them pinker, and hotter weather turns them redder. Flowers fall cleanly, and without first turning dark and unsightly, as other varieties can do. Then in fall the leaves turn gorgeous tones of deep reds and bright oranges, making a spectacular ending to the garden season.

Using the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle in Your Garden

Wherever you need a small tree, be it on a lawn, beside your home, at the back of a shrub bed, or along a fence, the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle is perfect. It is tall enough to have shrubs underneath, or to leave a clear area of lawn for children or barbecues, but big enough to make a bold impact and beautify your garden. Plant alone or in groups of three, or in a row for summer screening. For group and row planting, space plants 6 to 10 feet apart, depending on the density you want.

Hardiness

The Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle can be grown from zone 7 through all the hottest parts of the country. It can also be grown in zone 6, but it will die back to an extent in winter. That doesn’t affect flowering at all, but it will remain just a medium to large shrub, perhaps 6 feet tall.

Sun Exposure and Soil Conditions

Like all crape myrtles, this tree needs full sun to bloom profusely. Even a little shade has a big impact on the quantity and continuity of blooming. It grows well in any well-drained soil, including poorer and drier soils, but very dry conditions for long periods can reduce flowering and re-blooming.

Maintenance and Pruning

Free of powdery mildew, and rarely troubled by pests, the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle is very easy to grow, and very vigorous. Decide how many main trunks you want while it is still young, and prune as necessary to create that. A light trim in late winter or early spring can be given, if you wish, to keep the crown neater and more rounded. Spring pruning has no impact on flowering, but never trim new, leafy shoots, as this will seriously reduce blooming.

History and Origin of the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle

The crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, was first seen in America around 1790, in Charleston, South Carolina. It had been brought there by the French explorer and royal botanist André Michaux around 1786, from India. This was just a few years after Charleston fell to the revolutionary army after a bloody siege. This new tree caused a sensation, and became a big hit in the South. It flowered so much better than it had in Europe, where the summers are generally too cold and wet. Since then many new varieties have been created, and the variety called ‘Centennial Spirit’ began its life in 1981, as a seedling at the Oklahoma Agriculture Experiment Station, part of Oklahoma State University. There Dr Carl Whitcomb had been experimenting with a chemical called ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS), which causes mutations in seeds soaked in it. One of the resulting seedlings was one parent of a new variety he patented, without naming it, in 1985 (PP# 6,383). It is one of many wonderful crape myrtles Dr Whitcomb has created. It was named ‘Centennial Spirit’ in 1990 to celebrate the founding of Oklahoma State University in 1890.

Buying the Centennial Spirit Crape Myrtle at the Tree Center

This classic crape is still the reddest of them all – if you love red, then this is the one. It is not widely available, so take this rare opportunity and plant it in your garden. You will love it, and be so glad you chose this terrific tree. But act fast, as they go fast.