Michigan State University Extension
Ornamental Plants plus Version 3.0 - 00001659
11/12/99
Failure To Flower
Plants fail to flower for various reasons. One of the
more common reasons is plant immaturity. Trees, in
particular, must reach a certain age before they begin to
flower.
If the plant is old enough, the growing conditions may be
too poor to allow flowering. Plants that require full
sun, for instance, may grow but fail to flower in the
shade.
Cold winter temperatures may kill the flower buds. This
often happens to forsythia (Vis. 1), flowering dogwood and
peach. Nothing can be done to prevent this type of injury.
Plants that are not fully hardy in Michigan will be most
susceptible to cold injury.
Improper pruning may cause failure to flower. Some plants
bloom only on last year's wood. Cutting the plants back
severely removes all the flowering wood. This happens
most often on climbing roses. Florist's hydrangeas carry
flower buds at the branch tips through the winter. These
are often pruned off in the spring.
Overfertilizing with nitrogen can sometimes cause plants
to grow only leaves and stems. Such plants will be quite
large but without flowers.
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endorsement by MSU Extension or bias against those not
mentioned. This information becomes public property upon
publication and may be printed verbatim with credit to MSU
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a commercial product or company.
This file was generated from data base ZZ on 01/19/00.
Data base ZZ was last revised on 11/12/99.
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heatley@msue.msu.edu . Please read our
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