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.
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