How to Plant a Crape Myrtle...or Not!

For three years I've wanted to plant crape myrtles in the backyard.  Well, two are in and the third is still in its container sitting on the grass making a brown spot.  Here's the hole for the third one.  I dug it a few days ago.  Then it rained...a lot.

Hubby informed me there was water in the hole, but I never imagined I'd find a swimmin' hole big enough for scuba diving toddlers.  And, what kind of plants spontaneously grow over night?

On closer investigation, I discovered that they were the tops of hubby's basil plants - that are planted on the other side of the house.  What!?  I'm trying to imagine what critter(s) bothered to chop basil tops, carry them over to the muddy watering hole, and drop them in.  They didn't even look chewed on.

Anyway, here are my do's and don'ts of hole digging and stuff:

• Do NOT dig a hole, in clay, right before a big rainstorm.
• If you DO dig a hole right before a rainstorm, make sure you plant the tree right after digging the hole.
• Definitely do NOT eat two wheat berry blender pancakes right before bailing the water out of the hole with the smallest bucket in the world.
• Do NOT toss the unwanted water uphill.
• Do NOT scoop out and place all of the muddy yuckiness right in the very place that later on you were going to use as a measuring path to get your trees lined up.

So, this morning I was getting ready to tackle the project as hubby was leaving for work.  He said, "I wish I could help you".  After having my own personal rainstorm in what felt like 100% humidity, and after seeing that my tree alignment calculations didn't quite work out - he's getting his wish.

It's supposed to rain again today.  This time I got smart (I think), and covered the hole.  I even thought to put an upside down container in the center of the hole first so that the water would run off the tarp.

Hubby sent me this message after reading this post:

I forgot to tell you that I pruned the basil plants so that they would grow out, not up. And after tasting them and deciding they were not very tasty, I thought I might as well use them as compost for the tree, and put them in the hole.