All my CM are saggy right now with the weight of the water from our rains. Normally upright ones are splayed into the driveway and I hit one with my car mirror this morning. Could that be your issue? If so, they will be fine when they dry out.

Mia, I had given that thought. But I honestly don't think we got THAT much rain here last night, and why would it be just the one of the four?

I had noticed a bit of powdery mildew on the ones on the ends last week sometime and made note when I went to town to get something for it/them, but that wouldn't wipe out the whole tree over night would it?

I am just concerned if we get winds or more rain, it will take out my pepper plants, my okra, and my tomato plants..So I am chewing on trying to tie it back up and onto its side of the fence. Of all the things when I planted my garden on the other side of the fence and to the west, I never thought that big old tree would come falling into it. Maybe I need to chew on relocating my garden.

Here if this helps at all.

I am inclined to agree with Mia that the sagginess is because of the heavy weight, though I think it has as much to do with the weight of the flowerheads as with water weight. It doesn't take a lot of rainfall to make a CM sag and droop when it already is heavily loaded with blooms. It is pretty common, in fact, especially when you let the CMs grow naturally and don't engage in the "crape murder" pruning often seen on far too many CMs.

Why only one plant out of 4? Well, plants are as individual as people----they are not exact clones of one another (unless you buy plants that are raised via cloning) and they can react to different situations in different ways.

Is that plant in shade for part of the day? When I've had a CM sag while others nearby have not, I think it partly occurred because a tree on the property next door shaded it more than the other CMs, causing it to become somewhat taller and more leggy as it reached and stretched in order to find more light.

I think if you leave it alone it will be fine and it will straighten up in a few days all on its own. From the photo, it does not appear there is anything wrong at the base of the plant. However, if it were my plant I'd check the root area because there's always a chance gophers or something have been tunneling around in the ground around it. Sometimes when they do that, in the early stages a plant sags or droops, and then eventually as gophers (or voles or groundhogs or something similar) eat more of the roots, the whole plant just falls over because there's no root system to support it. I had that exact thing happen with a fig tree in June. Still, I think it is most likely your issue is that the plant is just topheavy at the moment and it will self-correct.

Thanks Gals! I feel a bit easier knowing I don't have to get rid of it permanently! I was sadden by the thought of having to get rid of it and the back of the house lacking the symmetry I like.

I haven't seen any gopher/mole tunneling going on back there, in fact, knock on wood, I haven't seen many tunnels or holes lately!

The tops of the trees are going to get morning sun, as the tops go over the house/roof line, and then that one in question is probably the more shaded of the 4 until I would say 3/4ish?

Would it help it to get back to its upright position if I cut off the flower heads? I mean, they are nearly all done for anyways. And since I don't know crud about trees, I am assuming more rain on it would just add more weight, and more weight would make the branches snap eventually right?

I have been working on getting them back to a normal looking CM. They were severely neglected for a few years, and I didn't want to cut it all back in 1 year, so this year I opted to clean out the dead branches, and the insides/suckers, next year, I will work on the bottoms.

I am glad I asked here bc the things I was reading on google had me worried. Thanks so much Mia and Dawn!

I wouldn't sacrifice the flower heads. Yes, they add weight, but as the warm weather returns and everything dries out, the leaning Crape Myrtle ought to straighten back up. Since one of the main reasons to grow crape myrtles is for their lovely flower heads, I'd hate to see you cut them off.

I have brand new Black Diamond Crape Myrtles that I'm growing in containers this year, though I'll likely put them in the ground next year. They're only a couple of feet tall, but are in bloom and they are bent over just like yours. I'm not the least bit worried about them. They'll straighten up in a couple of days and be fine.

Sorry, I was pecking that out that quick answer from my phone because it was an urgent request! I completely agree with Dawn - I'd leave it alone. If you are totally worried, you might tie it up or prop it up with something (maybe a ladder?) The more spindly branches combined with the heavy heads make mine flop over when water saturates the flower heads. It's just the water weight. I came home just now and the floppiest one is already more upright because it's sunny and 85 degrees and the flower heads are evaporating the excess water pretty fast. We have one that had been trimmed to have naked trunks (before we bought it), and it is wired with a truss to keep it from splaying out, I think because it would fall into the pool and make a mess.

It isn't just the flowers and it isn't just the moisture from the rain. That bush is top heavy. The branches are too thin and too long, and aren't strong enough to support their own weight.

Give it a light pruning, now. Look it over this fall and consider how far back it needs to be pruned - and where it needs to be pruned - in order to have the strength to support itself.

I don't usually like to see crape myrtles pruned--especially of the "crape murder" type that Dawn mentioned, but here I agree with Warren. I think the bush is top heavy. If it were mine I would prune it back some, very carefully. If the problem is that the area is too shady and if the trees shading it are your own, perhaps limbing them up a bit might help.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but if at some time in the past this crape myrtle has been hacked back, that can cause more than one--sometimes 4 or 5 new branches to put out where it was cut off. That could be the reason for all those long whippy branches. If that is the case, you may want to pick one whip at the top of each main branch and prune the others off. Over time the remaining whip will turn into a strong trunk that will not be so likely to lean. Crape Myrtles naturally form multiple trunks, but they look best if only 3 or 4 are allowed to grow up from the ground. I would wait until the bush goes dormant to do any heavy thinning on it, though.
In the meantime if there is something you can tie it up too that would get it off the top of your garden.

Thanks everyone. Its still leaning quiet a bit.

I want to let them be more of a bush type, as they are on the west side of the house and I think it helps keep the electric bill down a bit. I don't really want to trim out the bases so they look like a tree tree, which is the what I assume you are calling "Crape Murder"

Like I said this was the 1st year I got to prune them, as we moved here last June. What happened to them before June 1st 2012, I have no idea. We don't have them in Kansas, so I just read about it/them, and went for the suckers, anything dead, and it said that you don't want any branches coming up in the middles.

So Warren and Mulberry, what I basically need to do then is look at the top, and prune out the thinner branches, leaving the strongest/thickest ones?

Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder how I am ever going to learn all I need to know about trees, flowers, gardening. Everyday is a new eduction.

Yeah, for now, look at the top and thin it out a little bit. Once it goes dormant this fall, look it over and then decide how you want to prune it. If you want it to bush out, you'll have to prune it pretty hard, though. In summertime, never prune more than a third of live growth on any bush or tree, unless it's a real 'emergency.'

One of the things I'm reasonably good at is pruning bushes and trees. Even so, there's always something to learn about pruning and trimming bushes and trees. As for gardening? Like anything else in life, when you stop learning, you'd just as well lay down and start stinkin', 'cause you're already dead. ;)

Every day is a chance to learn something new. Every day is another chance to get it right. Every day is a new opportunity.

The real trick to learning is in not making the same mistake over and over again.

Bee, Crape myrtle murder is a very common (unfortunately!) practice of repetitively topping crape myrtles year after year, leaving horribly scarred branches that look worse and worse over time. It is incredibly common in places like mall or shopping center parking lots. When new homeowners buy a place with a crape myrtle or plant one in their yard, they often copy that type of pruning because they've seen it so often they think it must be the correct way to prune crape myrtles. Horticulturalists have been fighting the practice of crape murder for at least a couple of decades, but not many people seem to be listening to them.

I can't remember where Tim and I were last week, but we actually were in a parking lot where the crape myrtles had not been murdered, and they looked so much better with their natural shape, as opposed to the crape murdered ones, which often have a sort of bonsai-looking top on otherwise normal looking multiple trunks.

I'll link an article by one widely-respected Texas horticulturalist, Greg Grant, but you can find a million more with similar info by googling. When you look at the photos in his article, you'll see where the branches have been cut in the same place year after year. When the branches are cut, the plants put out new growth just beyond that cut, and then the murderous pruners come and cut back at the same spot the next year and the next, and the tree keeps putting out new growth. Eventually you get the scarred-looking branches as the photos show.

Gardening is a process in which you never stop learning and I think the easiest way to learn it is just by doing it. Reading about it endlessly will put a lot of info in your head, but a lot of the time, that info isn't very helpful until you've encountered a situation where you put what you read into use. You never stop learning and you never stop finding new techniques or better techniques that suit whatever situation you're dealing with.You do something and you learn from it either way....either you learn it works and that you like it and that you'll use that technique again in the future. Or, you learn it doesn't work as well as you'd hoped, or you think there's a better way, so the next time you try something different. Eventually you will discovered you have found what works best for you with the plants you have in your soil, your location, your climate, etc. Then, if you are like most Americans, at some point you move and start all over again with different soil, different plants and a different location, and then you have to figure out what works best there where you are with what you have. I think all that learning keeps gardeners' brains and bodies young.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Greg Grant Article on Crape Myrtles