welcome to Hort tube my name is Jim Putnam today I'm going to be planting a crape myrtle this one's called berry dazzle it's a dwarf but anything I show you here would apply to pretty much any crape myrtle I've actually already dug this hole and I've included videos in the description of this video for planting woody trees and shrubs and I kind of go over tools and techniques for digging if you have a area too heavy clay like mine is and it's harder to dig you might want to watch my clay planting video for that what I really want to go over in this video is anything that might be particularly the first thing I did was I pulled my mulch back which happens to be pine straw make sure you pull any mulch you have way way back from the hole before you ever get started there's some more right there we don't want to mix any of that into the hole I actually have a heavy clay soil here but because I have been mulching here for the last here's some of it's doing a clump here because I've been mulching this space though for the last 20 years or so the soil has actually improved quite a bit so I'm going to amend this but I'm not going to amend it a whole lot if you have very heavy clay soils like this we'll use pine bark soil conditioner and I want to use some of that if you have sandier soils you definitely would lean more toward peat moss which would hold some water in place I've just basically dug this hole and I stuck this container down in it just to make sure I had about the right fit I've dug it to the depth of this container I'm actually going to end up putting some loose soil back in the bottom of it when we get to that point I'm going to pull this container out mix my soil amendments with this soil that's around the edge of the hole I'm going to put some of that material back into the bottom so a little bit of that mix will be under the plant I'm going to pour my pine bark onto this soil that I had pulled out I also have an open bag of compost and it's kind of a chunky compost blend I'm going to use that as well who also helped me with some drainage be a little bit of a fertilizer component Oh all right set that aside okay what I got to do now to just blend this compost into this existing soil and this bark into this existing soil pretty consistently around the whole the stuff that fell in is no problem I'm just going to mix that in with the loose soil that's down there like that if you see any old roots or rocks in the bottom of the hole I will typically remove those I'm just smoothing out the bottom of the hole okay so we have our pine bark and compost blend it a little bit with that soil around the edge and some of that in the bottom of that hole the one thing we definitely know about crape myrtles is they're always going to be root bound meaning that the roots are going to be wrapped around for sure many many times inside they are very aggressive rooting they actually don't make great container plants they tend to grow out of whatever container they're in very very quickly because of the aggressive nature with which they root in a container so I'll definitely hit this a few times around the edge and then pull on this heaviest part of the stem and slide that container off believe it or not I had watered this plant several times and it's still dry right here this thing has got so many roots in this mass that it water's just passing right through it there's very little soil actually left in here but I'm going to go and take my shovel and I'm just going to cut three or four places around the edge like this being pretty aggressive with this and then I'm actually then I'm going to take my hand and do this and really pull it these you can see the bottom here is all my pure roots we need to get these things saying outward instead of continuing to wrap around one another for sure I'm even going to take this bottom and just make some cuts with the edge of my shovel like that and that should do it I'm going to drop it this into this hole and I want this thing sticking up inch or two above this existing grade and right now it's just too low so I'm going to come back pull it back out again take some of the soil to mix its around the edge and add it to the base of it this is still pretty chunky so I'm going to continue to break these pieces up as we do this like that set them in place now make sure it's about the way we want it oriented the way we want it and I think that's going to be about right I'll give you a close-up of that here we are you can see this wire right here always be careful to kind of know where your wires are I've got two that the cable company and had put in a long time ago and they're barely buried at all I just happened to know they were there so I haven't heard them today but definitely want to write those things down if you ever find wires in your yard write it down somewhere so the next time you dig you'll know where they are but you can see I've left this thing up probably two inches above that existing grade right there these roots are pretty much coming out from the edge of the plant now so that's kind of perfect I'm just going to go ahead and backfill this thing all the way around I'll start on one side and just feather the loose soil into the edge if there's any clumps left continue to break those up with your shovel and I'll go around one time just like that and then I actually start stomping around it just like that breaking up some of these clumps at the same time okay this is about perfect I want to continue to use my foot now continue to break some of these clumps up just keep pulling this soil up to the edge of this root ball but nothing on top of the root ball okay so I have that stomp down all the way around and got most of the air pockets out of it anything that's sitting on top of that existing root ball I'm taking that off you can still see the top of it I'm still sticking up about an inch above what available soil I had here and I pull a little bit more of that up and then I'm going to take my mulch which happens to be pine straw and I'm going to spread that back out around the plant and I'm going to put nothing on this trunk I'm going to keep it a couple inches back from where this thing goes in the ground I want to see the base of this plant just like it was in that container I don't have enough pine straw I need to read motes my yard so I'll do that in the next few weeks but for now this should be adequate to get the soil covered enough to hold the moisture in place and keep the Sun from damaging the roots with any direct contact on the roots now one thing about where I've placed this crape myrtle it's on the west side of my house is absolutely positively going to cook from about noon until the Sun Goes Down it's probably not getting enough morning light I'd probably prefer to have this thing someplace where it's going to dry off pretty quickly in the morning because they are susceptible to powdery mildew but this is a mildew resistant variety so I think I'll be okay on that and it's in an open enough space here where it should dry off pretty quickly in the morning so I hope I don't have that issue but I'll monitor it and see the last two steps that I'm going to do number one I'm going to cut about 20% of the top of this plant off every flowers coming off this thing's in flower it's summertime I just did about 20 percent damage to those roots I want to take about 20 percent off the top to make up for that and then I'm going to drown it I'm going to pull my water hose over to it set it on a trickle at the base and saturate this entire area and then I'm going to back off I'm probably not going to water again for a week it's supposed to be a hundred degrees here this week most people would literally panic in that situation just water water water water water like I say I'm just going to drown it because I've cut it back it's not going to be using as much water in about four or five days I'm going to come back over here stick my finger down about two inches into the ground if it's dry I'm going to drown it again if it continues to be moist I'm going to check it again maybe two days after that and that's basically it okay guys that's it I've taken 20% off the top of this thing I'll get it watered in the ground with like I say a slow trickle really really super easy I don't think I'll have to do much to it since I've taken out most of the water use off the top of this thing thank you for watching my video and if it was helpful please hit the like button and subscribe to my channel for future videos also comment below with any questions you have about planting thanks again you