Lagerstroemia indica White Chocolate - Crape Myrtle

The Lagerstroemia indica 'White Chocolate' is a beautifully coloured variety of Indian Lilac, as decorative by the dark and changing shade of its foliage as by its long snowy summer flowering. Its young Bordeaux to chocolate brown coloured leaves, shiny, gradually turn to bronze green in summer, under clusters of white flowers, before the autumnal blaze. Compact, colourful, disease resistant, flowering from July to September, this bush is perfectly suited to the ornamentation of small gardens or terraces. 

The Lagerstroemia indica 'White Chocolate' belongs to the Lythraceae family, it is part of a new generation of Indian Lilacs developed by the US National Arboretum. Its ancestor originates from China. This bush presents a bushy and ramified habit from the base, with a rounded crown, slightly upright. It will reach on average 2.50 m (8 ft 2 in) in height at ripeness with a diameter of 1.50 m (4 ft 11 in). Its growth is moderately rapid. It blooms in summer, from June-July until September, for more than two months, depending on the climate. The inflorescences are composed of thin pedicels each bearing five petals with a very undulate edge, whose texture reminds us of a crepe. They are gathered in dense panicles, at the end of the year's branches. Hardy down to zone 7b (-15° (5 °F)), they give their best in zone 8 and warmer.

In 'White Chocolate', the pedicels and floral buds are a deep purple-brown, then they bloom widely in almost pure white. The centre of the flowers is animated by fine golden yellow stamens. The foliage, leathery and deciduous, insensitive to powdery mildew, turns yellow, orange and purple in autumn, before falling. It is composed of small ovate and pointed leaves slightly undulate. Finally, and to finish in beauty, its bark, as it ages, is very interesting: smooth, beige striations with grey, brown-red, it peels off in more or less coloured plates (cinnamon, faded red, old pink, cream).

Preferring the humid and hot South Atlantic to the dry and windy Mediterranean, the Lagerstroemia is a small tree that deserves to be acclimatised in the colder zones of our country, especially its improved varieties, more hardy and earlier. It is beautiful on its own, near the house, where you will be able to fully enjoy its generosity. It will also look good in a bush bed, a flowering hedge, or emerging from a clump of perennials. Compose a bed like a bouquet, with Nepeta, Salvia sclarea or jamensis, Aster laevis. In autumn, it accompanies the beautiful autumn foliage of cotinus and deciduous spindles. In a large pot on the terrace, it puts on a show as the summer flowerings slow down. We have simply imagined a tricolour vegetable tapestry as a ground cover to highlight the Black Solitaire Lilac. A carpet of Stachys byzantina, oreganos and silver baskets will dress the base of its trunk, highlighting the beauty of its bark, its black foliage and its pastel flowering. 

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. This tree produces fruits that have a narcotic action in case of ingestion.