Lagerstroemia indica With Love Virgin - Crape Myrtle

The Lagerstroemia indica 'Virgin' ('Milabla') brings its pure white to the excellent With Love ® series which brings together truly compact Indian lilacs with generous summer flowering, highly resistant to frost, perfect for ornamental pots and small gardens. This one is adorned with numerous fluffy clusters, to the point that it seems covered in snow in the middle of summer. Summer Lilacs are also appreciated for their bark, richly coloured and ornamental all year round, as well as their beautiful autumn colours. These bushes like heat but appreciate a little bit of moisture in the summer to support their flowering. This one is easy to grow in many regions.

Lagerstroemia indica With Love Virgin, obtained in Italy, is part of a series of hybrids carefully selected for their compactness, early flowering, floribundity, and hardiness. The 'With Love' Indian lilacs come in pale pink (Babe), mauve purple (Eternal), bright pink (Girl), pure white (Virgin), and dark pink (Kiss).

The With Love Virgin Indian lilac belongs to the Lythraceae family, just like the Lagerstroemia indica from which it originates. It is a small plant, reaching approximately 70 cm (27.6 in) in height and 40 cm (15.7 in) in width at maturity. Its growth is rather slow. It starts flowering in July and continues until September. The large inflorescences, in branched clusters, are composed of numerous small flowers carried by thin pedicels. Each flower has five petals with very wavy edges and a texture reminiscent of crepe. They are gathered in large, dense panicles at the ends of this year's branches. This flowering attracts bees and butterflies.

In 'Virgin', the floral buds open widely into immaculate white flowers. The foliage emerges bronze in spring, then becomes bright green and glossy. It is composed of ovate leaves that take on orange or coppery hues in autumn, depending on the climate, before falling. Finally, and to finish beautifully, its bark is decorative: smooth, beige streaked with grey and reddish-brown, peeling off in coloured patches (cinnamon, faded red, old rose, cream).

Indian Lilacs traditionally adorn the gardens of humid and warm areas, but, in their improved forms, they deserve to be acclimatized in colder areas by carefully choosing the variety and its location. Good hardiness and vigour will allow this with the new varieties of the With Love series. It looks good in a low shrub bed or in a small flowering hedge with a mix of varieties and colours, or emerging from a mound of perennials. In autumn, it accompanies asters as colourful as itself. In a large pot on the terrace, it puts on a show while summer flowering fades.

Note: Karl Von Linne named this tree in tribute to 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. We would like to point out that this tree produces fruits with narcotic effects if ingested.

The creation of varieties in Indian Lilacs has long been a French speciality, particularly in the southwest, with the two main hybridizers located in the Périgord, but also in Quercy. Other enthusiasts have embarked on the adventure, such as Christian Gaurrat and Antoine Scrive in the Landes.