Patience With Puberty

Tulip tree - Liriodendron tulipifera

Arrowwood Vibernum - Viburnum dentatum

Plants are not so different from animals. They reach sexual maturity on their own time. You can't rush it. As I read posts on various social media sites asking why their plants are not flowering or setting fruit, my first question is about the age of their plants. Often, it's only a question of patience - waiting for their plants to reach "puberty."  This is the first question that needs answering in diagnosing why a plant is not yet floweing.
Some plants are precocious. They mature quickly. It's not about growth rate as much as it is about age. It's no different than what most of us understand about animals. Some, like most rodents, mature quickly and begin producing offspring before they are a year old. Others, like whales and elephants, take decades before they are mature enough.
Most shade trees, like the commonly planted live oaks (Quercus virginiana) often don't flower and produce acorns before they are at least 20 years old. If you plant an oak for shade or because their foliage often serves as food for a large number of caterpillars, you don't have to wait the entire 20 years before they will have an impact, but if you also plant it for the acorns they provide to wildlife, you've got a wait ahead of you. Smaller trees, like the hawthorns (Crataegus spp.) that I favor, often need at least 7 years from seed. The same is true for a great many other understory trees and shrubs. Why should we expect anything else?
Here in my new landscape, I have planted a small wooded area for birds and it is developing on schedule. Few, however, are old enough to be producing the flowers and fruit that constitute the reason why I've planted them. I'm not a patient man by nature, but I've come to accept that patience is required. Someday, my landscape will feed my neighborhood birds with fruit, and the flowers will serve as an integral part of my pollinator-friendly design; just not quite yet.
There is no way to speed up the process, but there are factors that we have some control of. Perhaps the most important initially, is the age/size of the plants we choose to add. I like to plant my wildflowers when they are small - most in 4 inch pots when I can get them. They adjust much quicker at this size than the ones I purchase in gallons, but planting gallon trees and shrubs is not what I choose when I have the chance. It has to do with age to maturity. A 3-gallon woody plant may well be 2-3 years older than a 1-gallon one; a 7-gallon plant saves me even more years before the plant will flower and set fruit. Most of what I've added over the past 2 years here came in those sizes. It cost me more in terms of dollars and cents, but my years of waiting are worth something as well. Right now, my arrowwod viburnum (V. dentatum) is finishing its first season of flowering and there are fruit developing on its branches. That's not true yet for the other 2 species of viburnums I've added. Maybe next year. My flatwoods plum (Prunus umbellata) produced no more than a half dozen flowers on a single branch last spring. It was disappointing, but not unexpected. I believe that it will flower profusely next spring. Few of the wildlife I hope to provide habitat for will feed on the plums (which are too large for most birds), but plums are incredible pollinator plants.
The race to maturity is affected by sunlight. As I write extensively in my last book, The Nature of Plants: An Introduction to How Plants Work, plants feed on sunlight. Fertilizer is not plant food - sunlight is. Fertilizing a plant only augments a plant's growth and its ability to effectively photosynthesize, but growth for growth's sake does nothing to speed a plant's maturity. Often, it affects it negatively by forcing growth of the above-ground stems while taking away growth of the root system and taking nutrients away that would otherwise be used for flowers and fruit. Plants grown in insufficient light do not bloom correctly and thus do not set fruit in any numbers. This hit home most noticeably to me with a sweet shrub (Calycanthus floridus) I planted in a landscape I designed many years ago in Pinellas County. This plant was placed in the shade of a tall tree to "protect" it from too much light. It survived for 20 years (literally), but never flowered. One winter, the taller tree had to be taken down and that following spring, the sweet shrub burst into bloom. It simply needed more sunlight than it had been given. I have designed my wooded areas here using deciduous trees that will allow a lot of sunlight into the understory in the winter and spring. I have placed one large shade tree in the center and placed the understory trees and shrubs in areas where they will get enough summer sun, but not more than they prefer.
Fruit set also depends on sunlight and maturity. Young plants often don't carry their offspring to term. The fruit on my young plants, especially during the first year, often are aborted. At least most are. I'm not expecting a lot of mature fruit on my arrowwood viburnum for this reason. All of the southern crabapple (Malus angustifolius) fruit failed to mature this year. Maybe they will develop next year. Again, plants are not that different from animals.
Patience is the key to adding woody plants to a landscape. Creating a landscape for birds is a different commitment than creating a pollinator garden. Choose your plants wisely, put them in the right conditions and then expect to sit back and wait a while.