When I was a kid, we had black locust and honey locust trees in our backyard. I was recently surprised to see pictures of locust trees with flowers on them! Our locust trees never bloomed, though they did develop large seed pods.

Why didn't our locust trees bloom? If I plant a locust tree, how can I ensure that it blooms?

In order to produce seeds, the trees had to bloom. Perhaps the blooms were high on the top branches hidden from view below.

Honeylocust flowers are very small and greenish. Black Locust flowers are showier, but some bloom while there is new growth that hides the flowers. There are some hybrid varieties that have very bright pink to burgundy flowers that come out just before the leaves and put on a great show.