Can anyone tell me what is the most fragrant crape myrtle?
Crape Myrtle
I didn't realize any of them were fragrant?
My boyfriend landscapes and mows yards. In one ladys yard there is one he said smell great. She doesn't know what the kind it is. We would love to find one that has that kind of smell.
Is he positive it was a crape myrtle, and not something else? Or could the fragrance have been coming from another plant that was near the crape myrtle? I've just never heard anyone say before that they were fragrant. Any chance he could go back there and get a picture of it that you could post here?
I wondered that to when I saw this thread pop up in fragrant gardening---they are used in abundance in Texas and I've never noticed them having ANY smell.
I agree with Ecrane. I've never heard of then smelling nor I have ever smelled one. And I have several. I would guess as Ecrane suggested that the fragrance is from another plant.
Sweet Olive trees (if you can get one tall) have the most wonderful scented blooms as do the improved meyer lemon trees....
Well, I was curious about this whole fragrant crape myrtle thing, so I spent some time searching around and found a few references to crape myrtles with fragrance, definitely took some looking though so I still think it's worth checking that the plant really was a crape myrtle and if it is, that the fragrance was really coming from it and not from something else nearby.
Here are the references I found that mention fragrance:
The Plant Files entry for 'Alba' has fragrant flowers checked off http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/38003/
This page mentions 'Apalachee' as being "faintly fragrant",
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/MG266
This page mentions 'Muskogee' and 'Natchez' as being fragrant http://www.xeraplants.com/Xera_Plants_Inc/Lagerstroemia.html
There may be a few other references out there if you want to spend more time searching than I did. If you're buying it strictly for the fragrance, I would definitely make sure you go to the nursery when they're in bloom and sniff them to make sure you're happy with what you're getting. I honestly think if the fragrance was that special you would have found more people here who knew about it, and it would have been easier to find info on it when I was searching (the references that mentioned fragrance were somewhat few and far between)
OK, I know this thread was back in 2007 - 9 years ago! - but I just had something to add. My Natchez crape myrtle is super fragrant. I didn't know this when I bought it, I too thought crapes aren't generally fragrant. I have two other varieties that are not fragrant, and I have never noticed any fragrance walking by any crape myrtles I see in peoples' yards. But OMG my Natchez, it's fragrance is "in the wind", i.e., you don't have to put your nose in the flower to smell it. You can smell it from a good distance away, and it's a really beautiful smell too. I'm thrilled!
There is an old thread at https://garden.org/thread/view/2962/Crepe-myrtle-Biloxi/ on this. They mention "Biloxi" and a couple others. It was opined that it was a cross between the common "L. indica" species with "L. fauriei" that yielded the fragrant types. I personally wish I could go back years to the University of Georgia campus, where they had planted a light pink Crepe Myrtle variety that were extremely fragrant, but I was never able to root cuttings or discover the name. The garden shops seem more interested in selling bright colored varieties than highly scented ones..