Lagerstroemia indica Caroline Beauty - Crape Myrtle

The Lagerstroemia indica 'Caroline Beauty' is a variety of Indian lilac that offers a double summer flowering of deep red that lasts three months.  It forms a bush or a small tree that often presents several trunks. The bark peels off, revealing beautiful colours of beige grey and red brown. Its generous clusters of flowers appear from July and bear large panicles with intensely coloured crinkled petal flowers that are followed in autumn by the red and orange hues of the leaves. It is quite hardy up to -15ºC, robust, and likes heat and sun. Place it in a sheltered location in rich and free-draining soil in full sun.

The Lagerstroemia indica 'Caroline Beauty' is a horticultural hybrid that belongs to the Lythraceae family, just like the Lagerstroemia indica, from which it is derived. The latter is native to China. This variety presents an erect habit and average dimensions. It will reach on average 5 m (16 ft 5 in) in height and 3 m (9 ft 10 in) in spread. Its growth is quite rapid, depending on the cultivation conditions. It chooses the month of July to start its flowering, which will continue until September. The inflorescences are compound by thin pedicels each bearing five petals with a very undulate edge, whose texture recalls that of crepe paper. They are gathered in dense panicles, at the end of the year's branches. In 'Caroline Beauty', the pedicels and floral buds are a rose brown, then the floral buds bloom widely in a beautiful deep, shimmering red colour. The centre of the flowers is animated by fine golden yellow stamens. The foliage, tough and deciduous, is dark green from spring to summer, then turns red to orange in autumn, before falling. The autumn colouring is more intense in regions with a cooler climate. It is composed of small ovate and pointed leaves, with a shiny appearance. Finally, to finish in beauty, its bark, as it ages, is very interesting: smooth, beige striations with grey, red-brown, it peels off in more or less coloured plaques (cinnamon, faded red, old pink, cream).  

Preferring the humid and warm south Atlantic to the dry and windy Mediterranean, the Lagerstroemia is a small tree that deserves to be acclimated in the colder areas of Europe, in particular its improved varieties, more hardy and earlier. It is in isolation, near the house, that you can fully enjoy its generosity. It will also look good in a bush bed, a flowering hedge or emerging from a mound of perennials. Compose a bed like a bouquet, with Nepetas, shrub sages, Aster laevis. In autumn, it accompanies the beautiful autumn foliage of cotinus and deciduous spindle trees. In a large pot on the terrace, it puts on a show as the summer flowerings slow down. 

NB : Karl Von Linnaeus named this tree to honour his friend Magnus Von Lagestroem (1696 – 1759), who had sent it to him from India for identification. Originally, this tree was used to decorate Chinese temples. This tree produces fruits that have a narcotic action in case of ingestion.