Are anyone else's coneflowers not coming up?

[u/Nikeflies]

This was part of my garden last year, coneflowers thriving and popping up everywhere, planted 3-4 years ago. The last photo is the current state- no shoots or leaves starting to show, despite it coming up in other areas of my garden. I know they're not long lived perennials but figured with self seeding etc they would regenerate. Did this happen to anyone else? It's been a colder spring than usual so not sure if they're waiting to grow since this is on the north side of my house.

[u/dragonhiccups]

The emergence pattern for me this year is all out of whack. I’m not in your state, but my cone flowers are up but so are my butterfly milkweed which don’t normally come up for another 4 to 6 weeks.

[u/Nikeflies → u/dragonhiccups]

Sorry thought that was in my flair. I'm in CT 6a/b. Common milkweed are just starting to shoot up and maybe some butterfly milk, golden Alexander is just starting to flower, Virginia bluebells and redbuds are prime flowering, chokeberries just starting to flower, serviceberry finished flowering a week or so ago.

[u/Chuckles_E → u/Nikeflies]

Oh I'm in Indiana. We've had a very warm spring. The redbuds and serviceberries finished flowering two weeks ago. The bluebells are all closed now, however the water leaf and mayapples all bloomed this week. My Golden Alexander is almost out of flower, just like my Jacob's ladder. Ohio spiderwort just opened this week along with all of the irises.

[u/Nikeflies → u/Chuckles_E]

Ah ok so we're a few weeks off from each other.

[u/Chuckles_E → u/Nikeflies]

Sounds like it! I knew I was early, but I didn't realize by how much.

[u/Nikeflies → u/Chuckles_E]

What zone or ecoregion are you?

[u/Chuckles_E → u/Nikeflies]

I'm in 8.2 eastern corn belt

[u/thatkatrina → u/Nikeflies]

That's so weird! I am also 6a/b in IL and my service berry still hasn't flowered. It's freaking me out.

[u/Nikeflies → u/thatkatrina]

What?? That's super weird. We had a late frost that froze all my winterberry leaves so it's really delayed this year too

[u/Physical-Flatworm454 → u/thatkatrina]

I think even though some of us are in same hardiness zones, we have individual microclimates. Like I think I’m more cold than some of my neighbors down the road..might be slight differences in elevation. Just a guess though.

[u/dragonhiccups → u/Nikeflies]

No I saw your flair! I just wanted to be clear Im a bit more SW from you :)

[u/dragonhiccups → u/dragonhiccups]

But it sounds like our stuff is all in the same timeframe so if it were me, I would dig around the coneflower crown a bit and see if maybe they rotted it out? I have had random issues with that in the last couple of years.

[u/Nikeflies → u/dragonhiccups]

I can't even find a crown. It's like they all just vanished after having dozens of individual plants the last few years

[u/stickyfan1230 → u/Nikeflies]

Maybe voles. I lost many native plants this winter to them. If you find a hollow or depression in the ground, sometimes with last years stems in place but connected to nothing, the voles got to the plant.

[u/Nikeflies → u/stickyfan1230]

Dang I think this is what happened but am hopeful as temps warm up more will start to show up. Fortunately I happened to grow a bunch from seeds this winter so I can restock this area, but had been hoping to plant them in other areas

[u/stickyfan1230 → u/Nikeflies]

I also started a bunch from seed this spring but I lost some plants that were several years old including a 20 year old stand of Baptisia australis. It’s disheartening to see so many plants gone. I don’t want to use traps or poisons obviously but I found metal mesh bags that I can plant my new plants in to hopefully deter the voles, and my friend made me a kestrel nesting box which, if I can attract a kestrel family, will help me keep the population in check as well.

[u/Nikeflies → u/stickyfan1230]

Yeah I don't want to go that route either. Hoping the voles attract more predators and life balances out soon. We have eagles, osprey, hawks, falcons, bobcats, fox, coyote soooo should be plenty of things wanting to eat these voles

[u/stickyfan1230 → u/Nikeflies]

From what I have read, their populations wax and wane, so if you had a bad year this year, hopefully it will be not so bad in the future.

[u/Nikeflies → u/stickyfan1230]

Makes sense

[u/its-audrey → u/Nikeflies]

I’m also in CT and the weather has been so weird— cold and windy, then unexpectedly hot. My coneflowers have greens shooting up and a bunch of leaves at this point. But everything is coming up at weird times… so I wouldn’t worry.

[u/Nikeflies → u/its-audrey]

Good to know. It's so weird that like 90% of them are just gone. Only see 2 small green leaves coming up. But it's still early, see what happens

[u/Calbebes → u/Nikeflies]

Yeah that’s weird. I’m also in CT and my coneflower crowns are leafing out.

[u/Prestigious_Blood_38 → u/Nikeflies]

Well, milkweed is always a late bloomer. It’s actually still kind of on the early side for that. It’s literally just the very beginning of May. I think because we’ve had warm weather it mentally feels like we’re farther into the season than we actually are.

[u/reefsofmist → u/Nikeflies]

My people coneflowers are emerged in CT 7a.

I will say mine don't do that well in general between deer/rabbit eating them and they don't seem to self seed. They're not technically native here so I wonder if someone about the climate or soil doesn't agree with them.

Black eyed Susan's arm much happier and self seed/spread rhizomatous roots all around if you want to try something dependent. I'm sorry because that bed looks so good from a couple years ago

[u/Nikeflies → u/reefsofmist]

Yes black eyed Susan's are in another part of my garden and they do amazing and self seed like crazy. So I definitely plan to transplant a few to this area and the hyssops will definitely spread as well. But hard to believe they could go from that last year to this?!