hey!!! you keep coming back.. so you must want some learnin .... lets start class ... first ... the adage "first year they sleep, second crawl, third leap' is usually applied to hosta.. and i suppose.. a lot of larger perennials... i cant recall ever hearing it applied to shrubs ...but i suppose its possible ... now.. as to flowers ....lets set this in a time line ... setting aside all transplant issues .... the shrub flowers ... mostly in spring with shrubs.. with a few exceptions... then usually they take about a 3?? month siesta of growing leaves and storing energy ... how this all goes depends on the ambient weather at this time ... sometime in summer.. they start to SET buds for the next year .. again.. this development is weather dependent ... think about a severe hail storm decimating the new buds ... and dont forget drought ... and then fall comes.. and they prepare for winter.. and again.. it is weather dependent .... think about severe drought in aug/sept/oct ... then.. perhaps you decided to love you plant to death.. and somehow justified them needing food late in the fall ... throwing on gobs of fertilizer late in the season ... and then a hard frost or freeze hits.. and instead of having cycled down.. or hardened off to winter ... your FED plants were in fast vegetative growth.. and suffered severe frost freeze damage ... plus the drought.. plus the hailstorms ... throw all of winter on top of that.. lol .. including any severe temps not only cold... which yours should take.. but even prolonged warm spikes when it is supposed to be winter ... now.. all that said.. can you understand why for the life of us.. we most likely can not tell you why you had fewer flowers this year ... why dont you .. pop quiz.. lol ...wrap your head around the theory.. and you try to recall the weather since bud development occurred last year .. and speculate as to which vagary of mother nature.. severely impacted flowering ... we will grade you on a curve.. so dont worry about that .. as they said in law school: DISCUSS AND DECIDE .... blue books open... be back in an hour to collect your thoughts.. lol have a great day ... ken

In my area they are a common native, but grow best in half day shade. Knowing how hot the Mobile area can get in the summer along with how intense the sun is in midsummer, I would hesitate to put them in the sun. The pH sounds similar to mine, but my soil is well-drained. Since there isn't any clay in my area, I don't know how clay tolerant they are. If I were in your area, I would plant crepe myrtle, which is a lovely small tree when not chopped back and ends up about the same size I think. (but that might just be zonal envy on my part.)

My Diane has about 5 years in my garden and was a decent sized shrub (maybe 3'x3') when I planted it. It tends to grow a bit wider than tall - Chris Lane in his book on witch hazels gives its ultimate size as 2.5m tall x 3m wide. However, I'm at the northern edge of the range for H. x intermedia cultivars, so I don't expect that it will ever reach that. I am grateful for the snow cover since it helps with protection on those cold winter nights. Mine has grown slowly and since we still have about 3 1/2 to 5 feet on the ground (depending on the drifting) it is still buried. (My shorter compost pile is also completely buried, and last week when I mistakenly stepped off the path I've packed out to the compost I instantly sank to my hip and had a hard time getting free . . . we are still in full winter mode for a few weeks.) From what I read, neither Diane nor Arnold Promise are especially early bloomers when compared to other witch hazels though they are compared to almost any other woody plant in this area. I think the appeal of AP is the scent and the bright, relatively large flowers, while the deep red-orange color is the appeal of Diane. I would love to have an AP or an Angelly or one of the other scented, yellow, large-flowered H. x intermedia, but Diane is the only one I've ever seen around here, and mail order ones are so small.

babs, I seem to like both the yellows and the reds so I will have to take a look at that 'Diane'. I haven't seen any of these in a garden setting, only in photos. I hope you have good luck with yours this winter..and maybe you will post a photo in the spring when it blooms? :-) dtd...What a shame that the suckering spoils the effect. One of the qualities I like about the witch hazel, is the form. The bloom and the fall foliage alone is something you can probably find in other shrubs, but I have seen a number of photos of WHazels that have a wonderful form. Of course, I was assuming that some pruning was involved to do that, but I didn't realize they sucker that badly. I think it would make me unhappy if it suckered that much. For instance, on crabtrees that have a lot of suckering at the base. I really want to see that single, attractive trunk and the suckering at the base just spoils it for me. So, when you say 'ask about the rootstock', are you saying that the particular shrubs you bought from forestfarm were the problem and that some nurseries might sell some that won't sucker? Can I ask, what is your favorite aspect of having a Witch Hazel in your garden and if you gave it away would you really miss it? Thank you both.. :-) pm2