Early spring of 2021 I was at my local Lowes and they had a sale on some nice looking Rhodo's. I ended up getting a Nova Zembla since they are known to be extremely winter hardy plus I love the red color. I planted it in a part shade part of my garden (4 hours of direct sunlight, rest is dappled). At the time that I bought it, I would say it was roughly 2 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Later that spring it was completely covered in beautiful blooms.

Right after all the blooms had fallen off, I removed all the seed pouches since I read online that doing that forces the plant to focus on growth verses seed generation. Considering how young the plant was, I thought that this would be a good idea. Was careful to not touch anything else except the seed pods.

Then in the fall I made sure to put some pine bark mulch over the root ball area to offer some winter protection. Winter came and went. No winter damage at all to the plant.

Mid March early April, I pulled back the winterization mulch I had laid down. I also sprinkled some Espoma Holly Tone around the drip line. I followed the directions on how much I needed to apply.

Rhododendrons are approaching full/peak bloom where I live and I got zero blooms this spring. I got a TON of new growth all over the shrub though.

Taking an educated guess the shrub is focusing all it's energy on getting well established in it's new home verses using energy for bloom creation? My understanding is by late summer (this year), I should see next years buds on the plant. I know the thicker ones are blooms and the thinner ones are leaf/growth based one.

https://www.singtree.com/sites/singtree.com/files/buds-or-no-buds-014.jpg

Just curious to know what other folks think of the situation with the zero blooms this season.