For years I have had this beautiful little flower--I love them. They edge one of my flower beds. They are biennial but you will have flowers next year. They bloom in the spring to early summer and drop their seeds. It sprouts and grows for the summer and the next year they flower. I live in zone 3 so you could probably do this earlier. Around about the end of April I dig out the plants and separate them into clumps--singles are tucked into the clumps too. I leave a space between them to put a low growing annual. They transplant very well. This way I have a nice edging all spring and summer

Diann & Cricket, Thanks for your kind responses. I am trying to pump a little life into this forum but it is sometimes tough to tell. I write these articles and have posted a few of them with usually almost no response. I'm not sure if nobody is reading them or if most just wish I would shut-up. Most of these articles are somehow design related because I believe that is where we, as gardeners, can get the biggest bang for our buck. I believe in substituting common sense in place of dollars and cents anytime that I can. The problem is that this topic has usually been so poorly presented that more fear and confusion have been created than helpful knowledge generated. Far too many folks wind up avoiding design issues because it intimidates them. One of the great secrets to life is that the experts usually don't know anywhere as much as you think they know. Unfortunately, when it comes to garden design, many of those who don the appearance of expertise know even less about it than the people reading the magazine. Sorry... I'm not falling for the notion that some writer living in a high rise apartment in New York City is qualified to be telling us (who actually play in the Iowa dirt) how to do things. Picante sauce should not come from New York City and neither should garden advice! I just try to present a little different look at design based upon what I have found actually works. Many times, all that really needs to be done is show folks how they can apply common sense used in daily life to garden situations. I am a great believer in the power of the human spirit. Given a chance and combined with a bit of working knowledge, the potential is awesome. However, each of us are individuals and we don't all learn things the same way. I attempt to capture the essence of design principles and present this information a bit differently without all the highfalutin words. Hopefully, some of us in "that other group" can now understand it too. I may be just an old clod kicker but I have come to realize that the "experts" seem to have a hard time explaining highfalutin words without using a bunch of other highfalutin words. Perhaps they really don't understand things that well either. IronBelly P.S. If anybody actually reads this stuff and would like me to continue posting other articles; please let me know. I'm not looking for ego strokes -- just want to make sure I'm not wasting your time. Otherwise, I'll just crawl back in my hole.

Thanks, ljrmiller, and happy very belated birthday! (Since you posted the day before your b-day.) I signed up for Stoke's catalog; although it's too late to order this year. I'll keep it in mind, since I really like pink bellis perennis.

I have many of the same plants and I do not think the issue is water, unless it is overwatering. I have not watered my plants (other than recent transplants) since early September 2011 and they are thriving. I did have an issue on a few plants with a red bellied beetle that I did not take the time to identify. They turned my plains coreopsis into crispy critters. Get down on your hands and knees. See and feel what is going on. Look for bugs, dig into the soil to make sure it is not too dry or wet, look for curled or deformed leaves (sign of contact with herbicides) and know your plants and their requirements. Did you happen to apply any kind of weed and feed fertilizer? It's bad stuff. Check the link for pictures of my garden. Here is a link that might be useful: Plano Prairie Garden