How wond Ernesto rful. Thank you for the detailwd insteucrions on germinating crepe myrtle seeds. Would winter sewing work as a way of stratifing the seeds? While reading through a list of seeds for winter sewing I could have sworn crepe myrtle seeds were listed.

I imagine winter sowing would work as long as you get the requisite amount of chill hours in.

For me, using the fridge I get full control over what I'm doing and that's important for me when I'm growing special crosses that I want to ensure germinate. But for germinating any normal crepe myrtles, I would certainly try winter sowing them.

Yes - it will work fine. I started a few Sioux seeds I had collected in 2014 and one bloomed this year - from seed to ~ 5 foot plant in 2 years with a bloom.

Congrats on the plants Dave.

These seedlings are starting to bloom again this year and I'm loving some of these colors. Last fall I transplanted about a dozen of the most interesting ones out to the hill beside my house so I could watch what they do.



One of them is really interesting. Pictures don't do it justice but I'll try to share anyway.



As you see, it's a really nice deep pink, almost like dark cotton candy. You all know that Muskogee and Zuni are both lavender blooms so the following photo shows Muskogee next to it. Muskogee is on the left, my seedling on the right.



and here is Zuni:



Anyway, I'm really enjoying this cotton candy pink and it's also exhibiting really nice growth habit and rate. You can see in that first image that it is already quite large considering its young age.

I also have this really interesting very dark red bloom on another seedling:



The line also contains a number of black leaf plants and I'll be watching them to see what they look like this second year.

Cool pics Dave - especially that last one. I have ~ 13 and 4 are in bloom including a Sioux I grew from seed. A couple of mine, particularly Muskogee took a major hit last winter. We had very little precipitation and it was quite mild. I have to protect them here and they seldom get more than ~ 10 feet.

My Dynamite is blooming and it is lovely.

@Dave , these little buds are from your seeds from the seed swap. I am so excited to see what color they will be. I put them in a damp paper towel and left in fridge for 30 days or so and planted. I got six plants out of eight seeds sown. It is the first time I have grown a tree from seed. It is a very rewarding experience.

How exciting!!

It really is. Every other leaf has been a different color when forming. It almost looks like a loropetalum with issues, but my photos do not show that. I will post a photo when the blooms open. I was super stoked to see a bloom from only a few months from sowing the seed. Thanks for sharing

All my crepe myrtle seedlings bloomed fantastically for me this summer and they are all setting generous quantities of seed pods. I'll have a lot to share in the seed swap this fall, so be sure to get another packet from me!

Will do Dave! You have inspired me to grow more. To be honest I did not expect so much in this time frame. Super fun! I can not wait to try out some F3 and 4 from your families collection.

Here are the blooms from @dave 's seeds. They look a little lighter in the picture than they do to the eye. It is a very rich color. The others will be blooming in a couple of weeks. It is the first time I have ever really inspected close up the petals of individual flowers rather than just seeing it for the flower clusters.

How wonderful!

Dave, is this a crepe mryrle? I got it in the winter swen seeds I planted and have been babing it all summer. Things grow very slowly. Maybe the altitude,over 6000;ft

Yep, that's a crepe myrtle!