Crepe Mrytle Tree - how long to fully grow?

City instructed us to cut down our beautiful tree in the front of our home. It's actually a city tree but we're liable for it. Long story short, the roots were uprooting the sidewalk and threatening the water line so it has to go.

City will replace it with a Crepe Mrytle. Ive seen some in the neighborhood and while it's not as majestic as my current tree, I guess it will do.

So a few questions -

1.How fast do Crepe Mrytle take to grow fully? Few Years? many years?
2.How should I water the new tree? It'll be like 5 feet when they put it into the dirt.

I googled some info but it was very general. Thought I'd ask some of you tree experts here.

 

Crepe Myrtle??!! Do they not realize they reproduce via root growth? It will be just as bad as whatever they made you remove. I always prune crepe myrtles with a backhoe It is not much of a tree as it is a bush. They can grow quite fast.

 

Landscapers seem to prefer crepe myrtle trees and while I guess it is a tree, I agree with Larry it's more of a bush, definitely not a shade tree. Not sure I've ever seen one over 20' tall.

 

I planted two of them many years ago. One is around 20' tall and other is about 14' tall.

 

Mikel - are you happy with them? do they provide enough shade?

 

My wife likes the larger one because of the flowers. Personally I don't like them. Some shade on the larger, the smaller one has almost no shade. The larger one when flowering some of the limbs droop down, have to cut those to keep from getting slapped on the riding mower.

 

Google crepe myrtle, and you will see a plethora of pictures showing the different types. For the most part crepe myrtle "trees" are mostly indigenous to India, while we have the bushes as Mikel1 described.

 

I live in California and our city's favorite tree is Crepe Myrtle. They come out and plant those throughout the city. They have almost every color. I picked dark red, which is the Crepe Myrtle Dynamite.

http://www.fast-growing-trees.com/Dynamite-Crape-Myrtle.htm

They planted ours 3 years ago. Do they grow fast? Lets say, I can walk to Florida and back to California and wouldn't notice a difference. This year, it finally showed signs of establishment and blooms. My neighbor has his planted in 2008. If I go out and kick it several times, I am sure it will break.

However, the fully grown ones on my street do provide good shade. They are beautiful when they bloom, just like in the provided link. It also has a slender and smooth trunk. They can get messy with the blooms. I can see why the city picked them since other trees were lifting the sidewalk.

As for watering them, I water about 2 gallons (each time), 2x a week during spring and summer. I water it once a week during the cold seasons. I would also recommend a good fertilizer during early spring. They stop blooming around September/October for us and go into dormant stage.

The most invasive trees on our street are Ficus. They grow so fast and can easily lift concrete.