This crape myrtle has bright red flowers that last for months! It did great its first year in a hot, sunny, dry location with twice weekly watering during the hottest months. It's a National Arboretum cultivar that's supposed to be disease resistant. It did get a little bit of powdery mildew in the summer, but a little neem oil cleared it up. It's still a young tree, so I'm not sure how showy the bark will get. The soil is hard, rocky, compacted clay, but heavily amended with leaf mold and mulched heavily with pine bark.