Many years ago, US National Arboretum plant breeder, Don Egolf (1928-1990) embarked on a crape myrtle breeding program, combining the hardiness, and dark bark of the white-flowered Japanese Lagerostroemia faurei with the commonly grown Lagerostroemia indica, with its more colorful flowers. Most of the crape myrtles in the market today named after “Native American” tribes, were the result of Egolf’s work.
When I began regularly visiting the US National Arboretum in the 1970s, I became fascinated with a small, hidden plot of dwarf plants from Egolf’s breeding, that still remained years after his death. With some additional breeding and selection, the Arboretum finally named and introduced two dwarf selections, L. ‘Chickasaw’ (1997), and L. ‘Pocomoke’ (1998). Lagerostroemia ‘Chickasaw’ matures at 20″ tall x 26″ wide.
Georgia plantsman and retired UGA Professor, Mike Dirr was also fascinated by these dwarfs and after their release, grew seedlings to see if he could produce something more commercial. This resulted in the release of the Dazzle series of dwarf crapemyrtles, the first of which was patented in 2005. The photo below is our original plant of his 2010 release, Lagerostroemia ‘Sweetheart Dazzle’ (aka GAMAD VII). Our 14 year old specimen is now 5′ tall x 8′ wide, and quite stunning.
When I visited him in the mid-80s he took me into his greenhouse where I spotted his dwarf breeding work. I knew that would be something great. I still have ‘Chickasaw’, and for a long time we had ‘Pokomoke’ in the IDEA Garden in Tyler.
Presumably these need full sun(sigh).
On Dwarf CPs, Neil Sperry, CPs super fan, recommends these as replacements for knockout roses with RRD. They have same color, bloom duration and shrub size.