Planted last year, I left the entire plant over winter (for the birds). now it is spring and I don't know how to handle them. Should I be cutting them to the groundthey are all black now.

Answer #1 · Maple Tree's Answer · Dianne-Yes, now is the time to cut all the dead foliage and spent flower stems back to the ground before new growth appears. Hopefully besides feeding the birds you will get a lot of new plants from reseeding. If you have a lot of coneflowers you would like blooming all summer into fall there are a couple of things you can do. You can cut some of your plants back by 1/2 before they flower in early June or when they are about 2 feet tall. This will allow them to flower later in the summer and bloom until September or so while the plants that were unpruned will have stopped blooming around August. Deadheading (removing the spent blooms) from your first flowering plants will also help the plant to produce more blooms. Your second flowering plants can again be left without removing the flowers again helping the birds thru winter.

Please ask if you have any other questions.

John)