Herbaceous plants not growing

RoddersUK · April 2018

Hello all,

First post, go easy.......

I live on the south coast (Southampton) I planted up a raised border, end of august 2017.

Weathers warming up, most flowers are showing now, except:

Echinacea 'Moodz awake'
Miscanthus sinensis 'red chief'
Coreopsis 'grandilflora Early sunrise & sunfire'
Pennisetum 'fireworks'

I have read that echinacea can just disappear, I do have other varieties in there, they are all growing fast.

Will these others show, it is only April!

Any help appreciated, I normally stick with bedding plants, this is my first attempt at herbaceous

Bijdezee · April 2018

Hi, just for comparison my echinacea are going a bomb and the rest are ok apart from the coreopsis grandiflora is VERY slow showing very little growth. Im in Bruges, belgium and i think more northerly.

Give it some time and maybe a feed of liquid seaweed might help things along.
Pennisetum always seems slow to me.

Fairygirl · April 2018

Miscanthus are later anyway so you may not see growth just yet.
It can take some perennials a while to get going if they're young plants too, as they're building up below soil level. There's also the chance that some simply haven't made it through the winter - especially if the ground's been cold and wet, or they've succumbed to predators. Is that a possibility?

Joyce Goldenlily · April 2018

There is still time for your perennials to show growth, however I have found some pennisetom very iffy in hard conditions and some that just turn up their toes for no obvious reason so I assume they simply have a short life span. Correopsis are not very hardy so they may have given up in the cold.

AnniD · April 2018

I think the pennisetum variety you have is classed as half hardy, so it may have succumbed to the Beast from the East. My miscanthus is only just getting going, so I'd give it a while yet.

RoddersUK · April 2018

Thanks All, I'll give them all a bit more time. Yes, that beast from the east probably didn't help, even being on the south coast.

also, I forgot to mention a Heuchera, all are growing but one, its likely this one has died.

RoddersUK · April 2018

predator wise, the cat is pooing on the border a lot, I keep removing it. Trying to stop him. Not sure what damage cat poo can do?

Jason-3 · April 2018

Echinacea purperea which is the most common type ..dosent show any signs of growth until mid April in most gardens. Although it can be a bit unreliabe.
Pennisetum I find does well for me if I leave all last year' growth on until late March then cut it right back.

Again its a late summer flower so growth wise they are several months behind earlier perenials types such as lupins, delphs,veronica etc

Alchemist · April 2018

For reference 3 out of 4 Echinacea white swan have woken up up (last week). Weirdly, the 3 that have come up were seed raised (Feb/March) and planted the same year (Sep) which I assumed wont show up. The one that hasn't shown up was bought from a very well known large online retailer in a 2 litre format (planted Sep)... 2/2 of my Echinacea purperea magnus have woken up and are showing growth (just noticed this week).

fidgetbones · April 2018

Coreopsis grandiflora I have overwintered in the polytunnel, and they are only just emerging. Everything is behind where we would normally be at this time of year.

RoddersUK · April 2018

Perhaps next winter I will set up some protection and read more carefully whats hardy and only half hardy, oops!

Will be a nice surprise if some of them pop up though, plenty of other life in the border from the others which is good.

Herbaceous plants not growing

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