[Boomer]

Nonie,

I am sorry to hear about your poor Knockouts.

I wonder if maybe they never really took root.

Maybe go give them a little shake and see if they move around in their holes a lot. They should not be moving around much, if at all. That is usually a sign of not having taken root. (Wear gloves though. Thick ones. They have thorns just like their more elegant cousins.)

And at the beginning they would have needed water more often than after they are rooted and really well established. I have been pretty much ignoring mine since then. (But, of course, I am in Ohio so what do I know?) This does sound like a failure to root thing though.

You might be able to just pull them up if they are not really rooted, and you could then loosen their roots some, and loosen the dirt in their holes, and let them start again. Trimming back some of the top may help, too. And water. And maybe look into a little root stimulator. I do not know anything about those really. If you had these installed by somebody else, you might want to call them and ask. But make sure they still have enough life left in them before you work too hard.

Good luck. I wish they were not behaving so badly. I think you would really like them if they were showing off.

Boomer