This time of year, it's a favorite sight of mine to spot all the crape myrtles in bloom. I really enjoy seeing several trees of the same color massed together, brightening up the joint.
Seeing the tree in our Alexandria backyard blooming brings a couple of thoughts to mind: summer trips to the beach when I was a kid in Florida, a 20-foot tall specimen that my mother had in her backyard in Sanford, a patch of 10 lavender-colored ones blooming on the American University campus when Rosie came to visit, and the one Lee and Lori gave us for housewarming over on Linden Street - it's matured quite nicely.
This one was given to us by our Linden Street neighbors Odessa and Herb. Herb has a garden patch in the backyard as well, and they share squashes, peppers and tomatoes with us every year. Another botanical hobby he has is to buy clearance shrubs and plants from Walmart and Home Depot - once they've gone to seed, and there aren't many left, and nurse them into good health.
I thought I might do a Wikipedia search on crape myrtles. There we find that most of the cultivated varieties we see here come from China or Korea. They were introduced by a French botanist to Charleston, SC in the 1790's. And while most of them are medium-sized trees or shrubs, there is a species that grows to 100 feet tall!
That is actually the history of the big plant in Alexandria, and this small one, which Herb gave us this year. It will be making its way out to the cabin, where it will find a new home up on the hill, so that we can catch glimpses of color when it is in bloom from the clerestory windows.
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