My tiny Wintersweet gave me a dozen blooms this January. Can't wait to see it full size covered in hundreds of blooms.

I am thinking maybe I should remove the oldest cane - the only one it had when I planted it 3 years ago. It looks a bit overpruned, perhaps too much was removed for the shipment preparation. While the rest of the canes look neat, that one gangles in the wrong direction and looks crippled like a bonsai. It is also the only cane without blooms. I did that trick with a few other shrubs I planted, and it improved their overall look.

Where did you find that form? I've wanted the pure yellow form for years! I wouldn't prune anything back yet; give it a couple more years and feed it with a rhododendron fertilizer in May to encourage stronger growth overall, then cut the old cane back in spring. The energy stored in the roots from the previous season's leaves will cause an eruption in new shoots to grow, although they may take a few years to settle down and bloom again. Typically the yellow form is grafted, so beware of shoots developing from below the bud union. They will be like the one I have. You might confirm this with your source (whether or not it was grafted).

Yes it took me a lot of effort to find the yellow one. I got mine from a private seller and I can tell it was not cheap :) It is grown from seeds so no issues with the non-yellow suckers. I know the seedlings revert back to their purple hearted form sometimes but the seller assured me that had never happened with her plants.