"escapee" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 5 May 2004 08:01:27 -0500, "RoyDMercer"

opined:

I should have said 1 teaspoon per quart of water. 4 tablespoons per
gallon
seems excessive to me. If you are using that much, you could start to
affect the PH of the soil, which is not a good thing unless your soil is
very acidic to begin with.

Crape Myrtles will bloom very well as you say if you are lightly pruning
them each year. However if you let them go they will eventually stop
blooming. The state of Oklahoma planted hundres of Crape Myrtles all
along
the southern section of I-35. They are never pruned and they have
stopped
blooming almost completely.


They are not blooming because I highly doubt the state fertilizes it's
highways.
That is why they are not blooming. Not because they are not pruned.

When they were first planted, they bloomed profusely for several years which
negates your theory. Only after a few years when they reached their maximum
height and width did they stop blooming. When I say stop, I don't mean they
stopped altogether because they still produce very small and sparse blooms,
but this is not what I would call blooming for a crape myrtle.

I see the same situation happening in commercial settings where they don't
prune them but do fertilize.