Lagerstroemia indica Rose Fuchsia - Crape Myrtle

The Lagerstroemia indica ‘Rose Fuchsia’ is a beautiful, large resistant Indian Lilac, offering a late but lavish summer flowering: its clusters of flowers are a sublime deep pink. This bush with a naturally generous and ramified habit can become a small tree if it is patiently and meticulously pruned. It also charms with its matte green foliage, which colours in the autumn, and its decorative bark. This variety craves sun and heat. Equipped with multiple assets, Indian lilacs are among the most beautiful flowering bushes in summer. As such, they deserve a place of choice in the garden or on the terrace.

The Lagerstroemia indica ‘Rose Fuchsia’ is a rather old cultivar, often forgotten in favour of modern cultivars despite its beautiful presence in the garden. It's a small tree or a large bush from the Lythraceae family, native to China. It has a bushy and ramified habit, with a rounded crown. It will reach an average height of 4 m (13 ft 1 in) at ripeness, with a span of 3 m. Its growth is quite fast. It needs warmth to flower and often chooses the middle of July to start its flowering, which will continue until October. The flowers are characterised by thin pedicels each bearing five petals with an undulate edge. The flowers, whose texture recalls that of crepe paper, are gathered in large dense panicles, at the end of the year's branches. With ‘Rose Fuchsia’, the buds are pink, then they bloom into a deep intense pink, almost red. The deciduous foliage, leathery, is born red, then becomes matte green. It consists of small ovate leaves, which often take on lovely yellow, orange or red shades in the autumn, before falling. Finally, and to end on a high note, its bark is magnificent on old subjects: smooth, beige, striated with red-brown, it peels off in beautifully coloured plates (cinnamon, faded red, old pink, cream).

Indian Lilacs are the glory of the gardens in the South West, and prefer humid and warm climates. It is in isolation, near the house, that you will be able to fully enjoy this plant's generosity. It will look good in a bush bed, a flowering hedge, or emerging from a mound of perennials. Compose a bed like a bouquet, using Artemisia Powis Castle, Campanula pyramidalis, Salvia sclarea, Aster laevis. In the autumn, it accompanies the equally colourful Aster. In a large pot on the terrace, it puts on a show as the summer flowerings are flagging. We have simply imagined a tricolour vegetal tapestry as a ground cover to highlight the Summer Lilac ‘Rose Fuchsia’. A cradle of Swany roses and Valerie Finnis wormwood, punctuated with small tufts of lavender and red carnations, will dress the base of its trunk, underline its bark and accompany its dazzling flowering.

The Indian lilac also has many other evocative and charming names: muslin flower, crepe myrtle, lagerose, Chinese crepe myrtle, crepe paper flower.

NB: Karl Von Linnaeus named this tree to honour his friend Magnus Von Lagestroem (1696 – 1759), who had sent it to him from India for identification. Originally, this tree was used to decorate Chinese temples. We would like to point out that this tree produces fruits that have a narcotic action if ingested.