"Julie" wrote in message ups.com...
Hi. I am new to this group and tried doing a search, but could not
find anything to match my problem. I am in East Central Indiana & have
a great little patch of purple coneflowers in front of my home. For
the last couple of years, several of my flowers have gotten cut off
about 2 to 3 inches below the almost opened flower. I have not been
able to see any critters other than Japanese Beetles, and this does not
match the damage that I have researched that they do.


Do you have deer or squirrels in your area? If it's deer eating them, the cut off stem will be ragged. If it's squirrels, the stems are usually clean cut.
Good luck!
Suzy O, Zone 5, SE Wisconsin.


The big problem is that my mother-in-law has admired my coneflowers and
so we dug some up (at the worst time...mid-June) to put in her
flowerbed. Well, now she not only have those coneflowers being cut of
at the stem, but also some flowering cabbage and some petunias! And of
course it is probably at the fault of my "gift"!!! Can anyone tell me
what may be causing this, IF I can get rid of it, and if so, HOW??!!
She wants to dig up and destroy all of the plants we moved (several!!)
but I told her it probably won't help since whatever it is has
obviously moved about 30 yards to her petunias.

By the way, my batch of coneflowers only have about 3 stems cut this
year (out of several hundred) and look great. I suppose the stress
that the moved plants were under may have made them more susceptible??

I hope someone can help me out--Thanks for reading!!
Julie