By Bernard
Cambridgeshire,
United Kingdom 
We have three Photinias in the garden, all quite young (3 years or so) At the moment one of them is very busy producing bunches of tiny flower buds, while the other two are concentrating on making new growth but no flowers. I wonder if this means that there are male and female Photinias. This apect doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of my reference books/Google. Any thoughts anyone?
16 Feb, 2011
Answers
I have 3 Photinias too, two of which always have flowers but the other one doesn't. The one that doesn't have flowers has brighter redyoung leaves. They were all bought as "Red Robin" so I've no idea why they differ as they're all of similar age.
16 Feb, 2011
Photinias are not dioecious (i.e. with male and female organs on separate plants) so that would not be the cause of the lack of flowers. In any event, in species that are dioecious then both the "male" and "female" plants do produce flowers.
Assuming they are all the same species and/or cultivar/variety, and that they are all growing in approx. the same conditions/light-levels as one another, then two of your three are probably simply too young to set flower buds as yet.
16 Feb, 2011