black crepe myrtle

[woodchux]

Customer has a crepe myrtle with black and cracked bark. Looks like they had a fire underneath the tree but they didn't. Anyone have any recommendations?

 

[Castenea]

Question that need to be asked;

Was the grass/other ground cover black or sticky under the Crepe Myrtal?
Is the bark under the cracks greenish?​

If the answers to both questions is yes, the Crepe Myrtal is live and healthy, and the black bark is caused by sooty Mold growing on honeydew. In my area many Crepe myrtals had problems with aphids this past summer. The aphids dropped a lot of honeydew often tuning the shrubs and anything under them black.

Some crepe myrtals looked terrible in august from all of the bark sluffing off. The sooty mold increased the contrast, with the newly exposed bark having a slight greenish cast.

 

[Toddppm]

Is that a burn pile behind it in the pic?