kind of hard to tell.. w/o a pic ...

otherwise.. all you can do is wait ...

mother nature and spring.. are not really locked into any calender ...

ken

It's still too early in spring. I would leave it alone for a few more weeks. If you have nothing by the end of April, you can throw it away.

Thanks.. My echinaceas are showing some leaf buds. And so I was wondering if the helianthus was dead. Still no activity on a lot of other perennials, but I was wondering if helianthus does indeed die down completely.
Also, variegated northern sea oats also looks dead - no new shoots appearing. Any experience with that? I bought both the helianthus and the grass last year and didnt know what to expect.

You realize we are still in the last week of winter? First day of Spring is another 7 days from today....it's too early to start making the call for what wintered over and what may not have. Patience ;)

Different plants have different time tables. Day length, soil temperature and soil moisture and how those are effected by specific location create different microclimates as well, so even 2 plants of the the same variety planted in slightly different locations may emerge at different times. Gardening teaches us patience (or at least tries to in my case.)

Don't ask us!

Yesterday.

Other posters above have given you sound advice--it's too early in the growing season to decide if something did or didn't come through the winter. As nhbabs pointed out, the hours of daylight + soil moisture + temperature are, combined, what trigger plants to break winter dormancy. Temps may have warmed more in your zone than mine but hours of daylight or excess/lack of precipitation may not have triggered the plants where you are to break dormancy. Even with 50+ years of gardening behind me, I was surprised when a perennial I planted several years ago showed up late last year after I'd given up on it.

Besides, what's your rush? You can't speed things along just by wishing or hoping. One of gardening's toughest lessons is to step back and let Mother Nature take the wheel.

There wasn't any information available on Google as to its growing habits which suggest its might be a fairly recent cultivar.

Thanks for all the responses. I guess I was just eager to know for sure it wasn't dead. Last year it was a small plant and I was hoping it would grow larger this year. The blooms are lovely - like little yellow dahlias.

SunnyBorders - I am glad I don't have to shovel all that!

Here's the picture

Looks like a healthy specimen to my eye. All my Buddleia/butterfly bushes look much the same this time of year and they're only hardy to Z5. Normally I've pruned them back by this time but at present there's too much frozen snow/ice blanketing the garden beds and currently I can't get to them without snowshoes.

Generally Mother Nature knows what she's doing but I hope for your sake she's feeling benevolent towards your helianthus.

Helianthus is not the first plant to appear in my garden so wait. It dies completely back. No early budding growth shows that I can remember. I started with Sunshine Lorraine and it usually surprises me after I think I lost it.

Thanks for the reassuring replies. Last year I was wondering the same about Joe Pye Weed, Baptisia and Hardy hibiscus, and all of them eventually grew nicely.

who knows ... give it another month or so ...

but looking at your pic ....

it looks like you took it straight out of a pot ... and made the exact diameter hole... and stuck it in ... the circle of invading grass is indicative to my eye ....

when i moved to an all sand garden ... i found that unless i broke up the 'too good' potting media around the roots and planted in more native soil ..... that the sand would actually wick all the water out of the planting media... and eventually the high peat potting soil would get so dry.. the plant would die ... the media becoming nearly water repellant in late summer ...

give it plenty of time... but if it doesnt come back.. dig it up..and find out if any roots ever left the gob of potting media.. and started growing in your native soil ...

any chance this was a late season bargain plant?????

if not.. snap a pic of it all.. and come on back with a new post.. for ideas how to avoid this in the future ...

ken

ps: and i see osmacote.. which is not very helpful in the scenario i mention above ...

I bought it early last summer, potted it, and finally planted it in the ground in the fall.I did make a slightly bigger hole than the pot but filed it back with the same soil. The osmocote wasnt added by me. Was probably in the potting mix. If it comes back to life I will replant it with some compost mixed in. I dont think I broke up the potting media before putting it into the ground.

Last year was the first season for mine and just like you I wasn't sure if it made it through the winter because of how late it was..... then one day :)
I wouldn't bother transplanting again, sunflowers are strong growers and even with a gob of potting soil, the roots should shoot out into the surrounding soil. It's not a dainty plant that rootbounds and it did great last year even through a severe dry spell.... (for most every other plant the replanting advice would apply, not so much this time, this particular plant)

Mine reseeds in a shallow stone path with cloth beneath. It's tough.

I see no new growth yet on the plant from last year. However, I see several small seedlings around which look to me like they might be its off spring.
I will post a photo later today.
loretta (or anyone else) - do the off spring come true from the seeds or do they revert to something else? I really liked the double yellow flowers - almost looked like little dahlias.

I had recently dug and moved my two plants of Helianthus 'Sunshine Daydream', after just one growing season, they had formed a rather daunting aggressive THICK mass of tuberous like roots. The weather has been very erratic, from warm to cold and then back to more cold, thus they're not yet showing above ground growth.

Oh, I lied, I just checked and see new growth emerging.

Terrance

This post was edited by twrosz on Fri, May 9, 14 at 13:56

Mine are up now. Sunshine Lorraine just looks like lettuce and hasn't been up long. The green seedlings are more vigorous, taller and in a warmer micro-climate. I do get some variegated seedlings like the parent. I haven't tried the double form but you won't know until they flower anyway.

Here's the picture

That's it! Are you sure they are all separate seedlings?

This plant hosts Lygaeus turcicus - false milkweed bug, btw. I do get these. They supposedly eat the seeds. It took me a while to figure out that they weren't boxelder bugs or true milkweed bugs but they come every year. I let them be.

Here is a link that might be useful: false milkweed bug

nirenjoshi, rather than being seedlings, I wonder if all that growth you're seeing isn't actually coming from the roots of the original plant, as this is exactly how my plant appears, albeit not as advanced in growth. Last fall, no viable seeds would have been produced on my plant before it had been stuck down by killing frost. If you were to dig down on one of these 'seedlings', you might possibly find it attached to the mother.

I havent dug into the roots to see if its all coming from the roots of the original plant. I did not know that the new shoots would emerge from the roots, around the old plant. Anyway, I am super happy to see so many new shoots! It seems to me that it spreads like another plant I have - salvia black and blue. That also spreads via roots and quite vigorously too.
Thanks for confirming that my helianthus 'Sunshine Daydream' is alive and well! :)

Update
Here's a picture

Thank you for updating. Can't wait to see what story the flowers tell.

Here's the flower

Here's the entire plant

Perfect! Glad your plant lived after all!

Just wondering nirenjoshi how tall has it grown?