Crepe myrtles are a go-to flowering tree for Southern gardens, but not every garden is suited for a large tree. These dwarf varieties are great to mix into perennial beds, to grow in planters ...

Princess Holly Ann' from Garden Debut is a dwarf good for small spaces ... but I'm taking one out), Eucalyptus debuezevillei and four crape myrtles. The biggie is Cornus controversa 'Variegata ...

The plants I’d been growing were dwarf crape myrtles — the Petite series. I had bought what nurseries call “liners.” They were 31/2-inch pots that I immediately shifted up into 1-gallon pots.