Interesting. It looks like a flower that has already bloomed and is setting seed.

Lisa beat me to it. That's exactly what I was going to say. If we are wrong, and they turned brown without the blooms ever opening, let us know and we'll think up a logical explanation.

YES. WE HAVE HAD TOO MUCH WATER.

Actually, thats how they always act and the plant looks fine to me. Those aren't brown flowers, they are the part thats always left after the flower falls out when faded, there is usually a green turning to black seed inside. They start out purple when the flower is in them, then the flower drops, they dry out and turn brown. Looks perfectly normal to me.

I've had this plant a dozen years. It is right by my front door. Not only do I pass it every day, I make special trips just to look at it. It is one of my favorites! I have never seen this so early in the season.

texasranger, lol lol lol. That is just what I was going to say. We have too much water everywhere and I am ready for it to go away.

nowyousedum, All my salvias did bloom really early this year. Our last freeze was early and we had abundant moisture early, long before we started having too much moisture, so everything has been blooming early here. It really was throwing me off to have flowers blooming in early April that normally don't bloom until late May. Wet years are so much better than dry years, up to a point, but I'm thinking now that we need for it to stop being so wet all the time before the perennial flowers start having drainage issues and begin dying. So far, all I'm losing is reseeding annuals that just aren't used to having constantly wet feet.

I'm even beginning to worry about the plants in the three-year-old back garden which has a lot of sandy soil and I haven't even done much soil amending back there yet, so the clay side of that garden is pretty pitiful looking, although native milkweed is blooming there now. So far, I don't think anything has disappeared back there, except the agastache which just didn't make it through the wet winter in what is a pretty well-drained sandy area on high ground, but there's quite a few perennial herbs and flowers back there that are looking less than happy.

Dawn