A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 Purple cone flower

I have a purple cone flower that is not doing very well. I water every day, because it gets so hot here, and the soil is very sandy. It did very well at first, Then I put some fertilizer on it that was for flowering bushes and evergreens. Now it seems to be dying. The leaves are turning black, and the flowes are producing 5-6 flowers om each head. is there anything I can do?

Jacque,
Hi and Welcome to The Garden Helper's Forum,
We're very glad you found us...

Just wanted to let you know, I was going to move your post into plants AND flowers SECTION,
you should have a much better response for your
question there...

In the meantime, answer some questions for us,
and it'll help us figure out what's up...

What kind of soil do you have your plants,
planted in???
~Regular garden soil or was it a bagged soil?
~If it was bagged, what kind?

~What kind of fertilizer was it, name brand?
And the numbers on the front of the bag?
ie: 10~60~10, 8~8~5... ???? Just wondering...

~And when you say, you water it every day,
are they deeeeeeeeep waterings, or just long enough to say, water the top area??
~And do you water the leaves????

I never water mine. I think they like dry and never fertilize them.

If you let the flowers dry you can re-seed this Fall. Sounds like you over watered and they have root rot,

Ditto to cinta,
Cone flowers prefer drought conditions. Also I know they can be suceptible to fungus too. I would check into that. Bring a few sample leaves to a local nursery for further analysis.

I copied and pasted her message of information to me here on her original post....

This time of year mine are dying back. The stems are dry and the leaves turning blackish. The plant will die back completely and emerge again next year from bare ground. Many of my first year plants do not fully flower. I am in zone 6 and the since the seeds need to get colder than it might get here under natural conditions, I overwinter seeds in the refrigerator for 4 months in a ziplock bag.

Thanks for the info. Mine are turning black now too. I thought that because my soil was nothing but sand, They needed more water so they wouldn't dry out. I just hope they come back next year. I'll try not to water them so much.

Remember, they can re~seed themselves...

Just sprinkle some of the seed heads *from the flowers* onto the ground, and you should see
a baby or two also...

Some plants will go dormant early if it's too
dry.. they'll put themselves to sleep..
to save and conserve themselves..

So, they may very well come back for you next year..

And remember, once established, those Cone flowers, are drought tolerant...so, as long as
they've established a deep tap root, they'll be fine..

*also, to ensure a deep tap root when first planting, give deeeeeeeeeeeeeppp waterings
when establishing, and that will send the tap
root down far so it can get the moisture below.

Thanks weezie.