You should post this in the New England forum. You might get more targeted help.

Banana Cream is hardy to zone 5, but many parts of Vermont are either zone 5 or colder. I don't know if you live in New England, but if you do you know we had a doozy of a winter! Serious spell of negative temps in December, but there was, fortunately, lots of snow cover. I'm on the border of zone 6, but one day in that spell we had a high of 1 and a low of -16. I've had some surprising losses in the garden, and I believe it might be NOT the winter cold, but some serious cold in April just when plants were coming out of dormancy. WE got down to 23 degrees after some previous warmer weather that had brought plants out of dormancy. So, the Banana Cream isn't EXACTLY hardy for that kind of winter and a crazy April. It's more likely borderline. The standard shasta daisy is hardy to zone 4, so it would have been fine. The fancy new varieties of plants often lose some of their hardiness and are not as dependable as the species type. Ask me how I know, go ahead...because everybody says that has been their experience and this past winter/spring I lost SIX beautiful new fancy coreopsis. >:-(

As for no buds, we are too early here for buds, but we are always behind everybody because of the ocean. I thought some plants lost their buds for people during the April weather. I don't know if Shasta would set bud that early. Because we are normally behind other areas, I seem to not have had many buds setting during the April cold, so few to no losses, for which I am thankful.

But, Banana Cream is indeed beautiful! One of my favorite Shasta daisies. I hope it continues to recover this summer and continues to grow.

P.S. Do you know the zone of your area in Vermont?

Mine too died after two to three years. According to the various sources it is not a long lived perennial, unfortunately.

just an aside ... whenever you have a usual white flowered plant ... like many daisy are ... when they mess with the genetics to come up with crazy colors .it seems the plants are genetically weak.. and are usually short lived ... and that is why many of them simply disappear from the market within a few years .... with the usual exception you will find a couple peeps who have a full yard of them and they cant beat them back with a stick.. lol ...

i noticed this with growing hybrid T roses in MI ... red and white are the usual historical suspects .. and by the time they got to yellows and oranges ... many of them simply didnt thrive ....

just experience, observation and speculation.. with no research to support said conclusions ... aka .. an aside ...

ken