Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That has happened to me with Echinacea "Magnus". Some of the flowers were entirely green (the normally brown center part AND the purple petals). I don't remember if I read that it could be a virus or something, but I decided to cut off all those flowers so that they couldn't reseed. I had to do that for several years, and it's seemed to have stopped now (fingers crossed).
Yikes. jut did some research and it sounds very serious. It is 100 today and entirely too hot for anybody to do anything in the garden for a few days. Hope it never happens to me. Thanks.
Interesting. I had asters in the same garden bed less than 10 feet away from the Echinacea. It took a few years the the deer finally decimated the asters. Maybe that, plus my deadheading, did the trick, who knows.
it's a phytoplasma. they love Echinacea for some reason.
Quote:
A common symptom caused by phytoplasma infection is phyllody, the production of leaf-like structures in place of flowers. Evidence suggests the phytoplasma downregulates a gene involved in petal formation (AP3 and its orthologues) and genes involved in the maintenance of the apical meristem.
I lost my coneflowers last summer to Asters Yellow. They said it was "carried" by leafhoppers - nothing else was affected. It is fatal to the flowers though - I dug mine up and threw them in the trash - and the dirt they were growing in as well - then sterilized my shovel.
I had never experienced it before - and I planted new ones this year, but now many and I was hesitant to do so. So far, so good. They did great at our house in Ohio - and I really love them. Will see how it goes this year. They are generally prolific self-seeders, too.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
