Lagerstroemia indica Summer Beauty Victor - Crape Myrtle

Translation :

The Lagerstroemia indica 'Victor' is undoubtedly the most well-known crepe myrtle from the beautiful collection 'Summer Beauty'. With a lovely compact yet rather upright habit, this tireless bush offers a flowering of a dark but shiny red, from the beginning to the end of summer. A very decorative bark that peels off in coloured patches and provides beautiful autumn colours with good resistance to powdery mildew are the other assets of this summer lilac. It represents a good alternative to roses in a small garden, and its modest development is well suited to container culture, to decorate the terrace or the balcony.

The Crepe Myrtle 'Victor' belongs to the Lythraceae family, like the Lagerstroemia indica and faurieri , from which it comes. Its first ancestor is native to China, the second to Korea and Japan. Its habit is rather upright, its bushy crown is nicely rounded.  Small in size, this plant will reach about 1.50 m in height for 1.30 m (4 ft 4 in) at ripeness. Its growth is quite fast. It often chooses the end of June to start its flowering, which continues until September. The large inflorescences, in ramified clusters, are composed of very numerous small flowers carried by thin pedicels. Each flower has five petals with a very undulate edge, whose texture is reminiscent of crepe paper. They are gathered in large, dense panicles, at the tip of the year's branches. Its floral buds blossom widely into dark red flowers, which hardly fade over time, and reveal sporadic yellow stamens. The foliage, leathery and deciduous, is born reddish bronze in spring, then becomes dark green and shiny. It is composed of ovate leaves, which take on beautiful orange, yellow and red hues in autumn, depending on the climate, before falling quite late. This plant's seasonal beauty ends with its decorative bark : smooth, beige striate with grey, red-brown, peeling off in coloured patches (cinnamon, faded red, old pink, cream).

Crepe Myrtles traditionally prefer humid and hot climates to dry and windy climates. It is a small tree that, in its improved forms, deserves to be acclimatised to colder areas, carefully choosing the variety and its location. It is hardy and vigourous like the new varieties of the Summer Beauty series. It is best planted in isolation, near the house, where you will be able to fully enjoy its generosity. It will look good in a low bush bed, or in a small mixed variety and colour flowering hedge, or emerging from a mound of perennials. In autumn, it accompanies the colourful cotinus and the deciduous spindle trees. In a large pot on the terrace, it puts on a show as the summer flowerings slow down. 

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

The creation of varieties in Crepe Myrtle has long been a French speciality, particularly in the south-west of our country, the two main hybridisers then being located in Perigord but also in Quercy. Other enthusiasts have embarked on the adventure, like Christian Gaurrat and Antoine Scrive in the Landes.