Question
Hi Laura,
A few questions for you that have been puzzling me. I purchased a flowering dogwood in the spring of 2003. At the time we planted it, it was in bloom. However, it has not bloomed since! It leafs out just fine every spring but I see no blooms, no berries. What do you think is going on?

I planted an astilbe between some hostas last summer, but I see no sign of it poking out yet. Is this because it is more of a late spring/summer bloomer, or is it not coming back at all?

We have a ton of hostas in our rock garden and by late summer they look fried from the sun and are hole-ridden from slugs. Is there anything I can do now to keep them looking good longer? (They look great right now.)
thanks! Shelley

Answer
Shelley,
You did not mention where you are located and that makes a big difference in every question.
We will start with the Dogwood. I am in zone 6,western Kentucky and we had a record breaking drought

about 4 years ago.It was the worst drought in our area in 300 years! I can remeber this so well because I am a

landscaper and when you have no,and I mean NO rainfall for 4 months and temperatures reach 100%,all you

do is water.

It is like a rescue effort with plants instead of people.
We had just moved into town from the country where I had ALL of my perennials,shrubs and trees. I was in

the process of moving some into town but my efforts were thwrated by the drought.It was pretty silly to plant

anything at that time because you would have to constantly keep it watered and our water bill was sky high.

Farmers were devastated and lawn mowers were useless and quiet.If anyone mowed it started a dust storm

and if you made your living mowing lawns,you were in big trouble. I had a fairly young Dogwood tree that

had seen at least 2 years of blooms and it was looking really bad so I had to go get a water pump and put it in

my little creek to run water to my plants and that is the only thing that saved the Dogwood. Now we should

see Dogwoods everywhere in the woods because they are supposed to be a native tree,but the drought took it's

toll on them and hundreds of them are dead. So,if your Dogwood was grown around this area of the country

within the last 4 to 5 years it is probably stunted from the drought and is just taking a little more time to

establish it's root system. You could perk it up with a deep,slow soak with the hose and some tree food spikes

for blooming trees. I think it will just be slow to bloom.
The Astilbe,if they are in deep shade are probably also just slow,especially if you are further North of my zone

6. My Astilbe are planted in the shade with my Hosta and they have been up for about 3 weeks but have not

bloomed yet. You should see a little something peeking up by now.You may want to look more closely and

sort of scratch around the ground where it should be.It may be blocked by mulch or another plant.They are

kind of slow to establish roots. Just keep looking for them.

Hostas usually like shade better and do well there for a much longer period,especially the varigated and blue

foliage types. Yours could be getting too much sun for too long a period during the hottest part of the day

which is 12:00 to 3:00pm. You may want to move them somewhere more shady.