Trees, Shrubs and Conifers: Please help with non-blooming Clethra; prune? move? water?, 1 by grrrlgeek

grrrlgeek wrote:
We have a bunch of Clethra 'Pink Spires' that had been planted behind our house. All but 2 are under the second floor deck. The picture below is what some of them looked like when we moved in August 2007 (before I pulled out the dead one :P). I didn't know yet what they are so didn't realize that they probably should've been blooming. Last summer, the buds were all dried and shriveled, not one of them bloomed. I thought maybe too dry, but the downspout is back there and we have heavy clay, so it's usually pretty damp. Maybe too damp? From my digging around, there was nothing done with the soil before anything was planted (dig a pot size hole in the clay, stick plant in hole). One thing I'm going to do is pull a few out (maybe move, maybe not) because they're planted really close together under there, so I can get some amendments into the soil then.
Anyone know how to make these shrubbies happy?

Edited to add-they've grown well otherwise, and the leaves looked fine last summer.

This message was edited Mar 8, 2009 9:55 PM