Plant ID: bush with red flowers - crepe-myrtle (Lagerstroemia)

This is in Northern California. These are growing next to my driveway under a little oak tree. I moved here in November and the area where these bushes are was overgrown completely. I cut the bushes down to nothing and they came back and now have these great red flowers. I plan on letting them grow but I'm curious as to what they are.

They are crepe-myrtle (Lagerstroemia). Don't know as it's much use to anything, except for beauty. I have seem some established specimens surviving and blooming without irrigation, which is an achievement in our summers....

Awesome, thanks!

It certainly seems to do fine without irrigation. Like I said, it was cut down do the ground in the spring and has come back without me doing anything to it and we've had many days of temps above 100 so far this summer and very little rain.

Those are beautiful pictures.  I love crape myrtles, they are important to pollinating insects.

"Crape myrtles do not produce flower nectar but they are unusual in that they do have two types of anthers that produce two types of pollen. One of the pollens is for
reproduction and the other is to feed the pollinators."

http://okaloosa.ifas.ufl.edu/lng/files/2012/05/Crape-myrtles-are-important-to-pollinating-insects1.pdf