Red flowered crape/crepe myrtle, Lagerstroemia

We bought this crape myrtle last year as a tiny foot tall plant that was already blooming with startling red flowers with a few pink and almost white ones mixed in. We planted it in a fairly sheltered site and hoped it would survive the winter which it did with remarkable vigor. It grew a lot this year and the plant now stands 5 feet high. When our other pink flowered crape myrtle budded and bloomed in early summer, this one was still growing with no sign of any buds so I thought it wouldn't bloom this year but I was wrong. It's just starting to come into full flower now and it looks very good. I believe this was a 'Red Rocket' but I'm not certain. This was an excellent purchase.

Here's more information about red crape myrtles from the University of Florida site.

"The Story of Red Crape Myrtles

Wild crape myrtles from Southeast Asia have flower colors ranging from white to pale lavender to watermelon-pink. Gardeners have long sought crape myrtles with clearer and more intense flower colors, but true red flowers have always been elusive. Finally in 1997, after years of intense breeding, Dr. Carl Whitcomb introduced Dynamite®, the first crape myrtle with true red flowers.

Dynamite® was widely acclaimed for its red flowers and became hugely popular, inspiring searches for more red-flowered crape myrtles. Dr. Whitcomb continued his breeding and later introduced Red Rocket®, Tightwad Red® and Siren Red®, each maturing at a different size than Dynamite®.

The U.S. National Arboretum also has an important Lagerstroemia breeding program and recently released red-flowered Arapaho and Cheyenne. A few older selections have long been recognized for their good red flower color, but they never achieved the acclaim and notoriety of these later, improved selections. Thanks to the popularity of Dynamite®, red crape myrtles--new and old--are now very popular and widely available."

And here's the link if you'd like to read and see more red flowering crape myrtles.