Has anyone ever had this experience? I had more losses than I expected at my house, which I chalked up to the lack of snow cover. But I also care for the gardens at my mother's house and she inexplicably lost two entire beds of well established perennials.

Her soil is not the best, but she has a number of other beds that came through fine. We had healthy hostas, bleeding hearts, a goatsbeard, Jacob's ladders, fringe leaf bleeding hearts, Coral Bells, and ground cover sedum that didn't come back. The only thing growing in those beds is Stellas and weeds. The only other problem I can think of is that these beds are quite shallow - the previous home owners had put in landscape fabric over the existing rocky soil and put in a few feet of garden soil. Everything had been growing well for the last several years, though (up to ten years for some of the plants).

I was thinking of doing a soil test but if there's some strange contaminant I'm not sure if that would show up. The alternative is to pull out the top layer of soil, stir in some compost while we have the chance, and replant. I'm afraid that all the new plants will die as well. Anyone else had this happen? This is a new occurrence for me. I just can't figure out what could have caused this.