how big is that crape, really?
Sneak Peek
I first posted on this big Crape last month when I lifted it. Someone asked, Will it survive? Boy, has it!
How Big is that Crape, really? And the Iris is spreading.
I left off here with the monster Crape myrtle I lifted last month. This photo was taken a few weeks after the tree was potted up.
A reader asked, “Will it survive?” That’s the obvious question for a tree collected outside the normal collecting season. Well, here we are just over a month later. I think the tree speaks for itself.
Remember I said it was big, and I even gave some numbers as proof. But how big is it, really?
It often helps to have a scale to go by. I don’t like beer bottles in my photos, or tape measures. But I figured a hand and a hand-sized Spekboom would put things in perspective.
This is a big Crape myrtle!
I published a couple of photos of this Louisiana iris a year ago. It’s one of those fun experiments I’m conducting. In this shot, the plant is just starting to get accustomed to its new home.
I had gone through the development step of removing that arching part of the rhizome, which I didn’t think would work out well long-term. That left me with a little tuft of blades.
A year later, my iris is spreading nicely across the pot. The blades are fairly tall, but not too tall. The good news is, they’re about half the normal width. I take this as a good sign.
In 2021, I expect the iris to spread some more, meaning the rhizome will continue to colonize the pot like any good root system would. Once it gets sufficiently root-bound, I should see much more miniaturization of the plant.
Hopefully I’ll have the next episode of this accent to post sometime next year.
What a challenge?
Well, they all are whether big or small. As a general rule, the larger the tree the longer it’s going to take to bring the design to “completion.” That’s mostly because all of the new growth has to match well in size proportion to the trunk, and that just takes time and patience.