I think there is nothing wrong with the tree, it's just doing what they seem to do. I have 7 dogwoods, 5 Cornus florida and 2 Cornus kousa, and they always seem to bloom heavily every other year, with few or no blooms on the alternate year (which, for me, is this year as well). My kousas in particular, if they have a heavy crop of berries as they did last year, have nothing the next year -- I can't find a single flower bud on either of those trees this year. I'd be interested to see what the responses of other posters are, but personally, I think that dogwoods are just "alternate bearing", to borrow a phrase from the pomology folks. Dennis SE Michigan

It's a folk-saying, you know? Not a law of nature. --Grin-- Those plants, they don't have calendars. All it REALLY means is that . . . FIRST, the plant spends a period growing roots. During that time, you don't see much top-growth action. That time might be in a pot, or it might be in the ground. Eventually, it's got enough root to push up some actual growth. Not BIG growth. Not mature growth, but you do see something happening. The plant is getting bigger -- and it is STILL developing an expanding root system. Then, after a while, the plant begins to put up real, almost mature canes. How long it all takes, how long it sits, how long it "creeps," how big it leaps -- that all depends on the plant and the environmental conditions. So what they do for you will prob'ly be different from what they do for ME. But I'll give you an example. From last year's cemetery sale, we brought home two roses we didn't buy -- but which were way too small to sell. One of those (Pale Pink Noisette/Little Mary V Tower) has put up a couple of little canes, about 8 inches long. Another, a 'White Maman Cochet' had two little tired leaves. Suddenly, those leaves fell, and it put on four new crisp leaves. So I figure that by next spring, they will have finished sleeping, and will be creeping, and MIGHT even go into a 5-Gallon. They won't LEAP 'til they're in someone's garden. Jeri

Orientals are the least hardy of the main lily varieties. They like an acid soil and because of their late bloom they sometimes don't have time for the foliage to ripen and feed the bulbs before frost, so the bulbs tend to diminish rather than replenish. That said, my Stargazers have been hanging around for about 10 years now but I usually only get 2 or 3 blooms per stem. Casa Blanca does somewhat better for me, probably because it blooms earlier. Beautiful as the blooms are on the orientals I no longer buy any orientals. I can plant something like Scheherazade and have 40 or more gorgeous blooms on a stem. For me it's a no-brainer.

Had them all winter long at the feeders and suet and just had one on the screen porch, not a clue as to how it got in unless it came through the ceiling where I've had to remove some plywood sheets because of a leak. With all the damage around here from an EF4 tornado in April I probably won't be able to get a roofing job done on the porch until sometime in the fall. I'll have to get my more agile son to check the vents on the ends of the attic and see if they could have gotten into the attic and then to the Porch. long story short, nope, just as many as always.