You don't say where you are, so it's somewhat difficult to tell, but there were many areas in New England that had warm spells that started buds opening, followed by cold weather that froze the opening flowers and buds. That is a possibility. Where I am in central NH, we had a warmer than usual winter, but not enough early real warmth to start buds opening and create issues when it froze again, so in general my rhododendron buds still look good, though it's a bit early yet for me to have rhododendrons blooming. (The magnolias are looking pretty bad at this point since we had cold and some snow today!) If your rhododendron bushes are borderline hardy for your area, and you had a really cold spell, it may have killed the flower buds. If it isn't any of those, you could ask on the rhododendron forum, and if you add a photo of the problem it may help.

I'm in eastern MA near the water, but we've never had this problem before.

Thanks for replying

salbwil

quite possibly frost got the buds when they were open and vulnerable.

That happened to my yellow magolia. Some of the buds are brown and empty, and rest have smaller flowers with brown crispy tips. They were infull bud, then it got very cold with winds a few days ago. It happens sometimes, esp in New England. Hoping for lots of later blooms to take my mind off the yellow magolia. Sad.

If you put your zone with your name all your subsequent questions will be easier to answer! Here´s how, courtesy of NHBabs:

Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone.

If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures.

Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.

Browning or blackening of rhody flower buds before opening can be due to cold damage at a critical stage of development, as noted above. It can also be due to a fungal organism that is vectored by leafhoppers. Posting photos on the Rhododendron forum (note correct spelling) would help to narrow down the problem.

I'm in eastern MA right by the bay and none of my rhododendrons are blooming yet, although there are PJM rhododendrons blooming in the neighborhood.

I just checked the one rhododendron, Mary Fleming, which usually blooms very early and should have been blooming around now. I've looked at it sporadically the last few weeks with no bloom showing. There are no flower buds on it at all and it looks like it's about to send out vegetative growth. The last two winters have been rough on flowering shrubs in general and I suspect Mary Fleming's buds were destroyed. The rhododendrons that bloom later will probably be OK (so long as we don't get another sudden freeze when they do open).

Claire