Definately do cut out at the base, all trunks in your CM that are blooming pink. Then be certain to pinch off any new growth that the roots of those cut off branches try to keep growing. If you keep the new growth pinched off then only those roots should suffer,and the white blooming branches should begin to experience an advantage, which helps them to prosper more. Unless it is just the lighting cast on the day you took that photo of the pink blooms, the pink blooming trunks might be a Biloxi Crape Myrtle. Those bubblegum pink blooms, in my opinion are a much nicer sight than some of the more pale easily washed out pinks that some CMs produce. Anyway I only tell you this to let your know that if you do like that particular pink color and would like to have a CM growing someplace else with that color, Than simply order or find at some local nursery a Biloxi Crape Myrtle that is already blooming and that you can confirm it really is a Biloxi Crape Myrtle.

I just hate seeing crape murder, especially on the larger varieties of CM's. I just can't bring myself to tell my neighbors that they've got it all wrong since they think their landscape guy hung the moon and all. Sadly, they're so ruined from years of this that they'd have to be cut down to stumps and allowed to regrow to look decent again. I rail against the practice whenever possible though. A couple of years ago I was talking to another neighbor that has a beautiful 20-25' Natchez. She thought maybe it needed to be topped since that's what some neighbors were doing. I did manage to talk her out of that, at least for now, thankfully!

"Ive used bifen XTS, peppermintsoap and oil and malathion over the last 6 - 8 weeks." "every fungus treatment i threw at it" "my 3rd application of malathion" ""I always spray bifen xts around my house foundation" "Is the white flies whats laying the aphid eggs on the leaves?" Do you not see a pattern here? I've gardened in two climates for 40 years and haven't yet used nearly as many chemicals as you have listed above in one single thread- it's just not necessary. Not intending to be mean here but there are people whose "go to" reaction to anything is "Oh, gotta spray something!" It's a knee jerk urge to act that would be FAR better served by doing some research to identify the pest- are they white flies or are they winged aphids? You need to know. By doing all this excessive spraying you are running off the predator insects that Mother Nature handed you on a silver platter. They are out there- stop spraying stuff so they can move in and do their thing. Stop tossing chemicals around and call your local cooperative extension agent. Send them photos via email or take some leaves in for inspection- I've even had them come to my property to help ID a problem. Find them by googling "your state+**county**+cooperative extension." They are experts on your LOCAL issues. IT's FREE. Also- it's October. It's done. Clean up all your leaf litter and stop buying jugs of crap.

A bit past mid April and it's coming back, all the way out to the tips of the plant.