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Gardening

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rhododendrum expert advice required please!!

3 replies

sonsmum · 26/05/2019 08:08

In our garden there are 2 plants blooming fine, but there is 1 plant which has about 5 flowers and the rest of the pods are bare. My question is how can i get the whole plant to bloom? Conditions must be ok or the 5 flowers wouldn't appear in the first place.

Some history: this plant was lush and tall and bloomed beautifully. We had landscaping done and following this, the plant seemed to wither...leaves drying and no flowers...ultimately it was dying. We chopped down the dying part of the tree and there was a fresh lush growth at the bottom, which we left. So the whole plant is now approx one fifth the size it was. The soil is reasonably acidic (camelias growing well on it) and the rhodo is fed with the suitable food at the suitable time.
Now 4 years on, the thodo has gown considerably, has lush green leaves, but no real seed buds form......a few have, meaning it is capable...but the majority just open up and reveal bare buds.

So my question is what can i do?
Is it just that the plant is now considered immature and i just have to wait. Or is there someone thing i can do??
The rhodo is such a focal point of our garden that I'd love to to flower. I don't really want to give up, remove it and replace with something else.

OP posts:
prettybird · 26/05/2019 10:08

Did you water it loads last summer -especially May, June and September?

It's very shallow rooting, so its roots could have been damaged by the landscaping.

What colour is it? If it's purple, it might be a ponticum rhodie, which is a carrier for sudden oak death and can suffer from it itself (and pass it on to other rhodies, azaleas and some other trees).

When I was having a problem with my rhodies, I was told by the Scottish Rhododendron Society at Gardening Scotland that sometimes the plant will "sacrifice" part of itself if it is stressed and literally kill off one of its branches.

Also, pick off all the buds that didn't open properly and destroy them/put them in the bin as they might have bid blight.

We actually had a brilliant display this year of our rhodies and azaleas - but we think it was because of the drought Confused - because for once we really watered the bed regularly and gave it a good soaking.

sonsmum · 26/05/2019 17:37

Thanks for the info/advice.
I did not water it loads last year and it was a very hot summer so maybe that was the problem. I am taking care to water more this year and use the recommended feed.
I think possibly the roots were damaged by the landscaping which contributed to the troubles we saw, however we currently have very luscious growth and it looks healthy, just with blind ends....they open up, but no petals.
It is a purple variety.
i saw a few diseased ends, but not many, though have now picked those off.
I'll just ensure i water, and water this year and will just have to see what happens next year.
This is what is a little frustrating about gardening: it just takes so long to see results!

OP posts:
ErrolTheDragon · 26/05/2019 19:45

however we currently have very luscious growth and it looks healthy, just with blind ends....they open up, but no petals.

I think it's just something Rhodos do, perhaps in particular if they've been stressed the year before. They put on leaf rather than flowers.

One of mine suffered badly from the drought and has no flowers this year, the other has about half flowers, half leafing buds.

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