Coneflowers are a work horse in many gardens including mine, but they aren’t completely issue free. Recently one of my coneflower plants began showing deformed flowers with a complete loss of color in the petals. The petals appeared stunted and pale. In some cases the deformed flowers mimic some new interesting variety of coneflower but it’s not, these are the signs of aster yellows. Aster yellows is passed on by a pathogen carried by leafhoppers and can be transmitted to many plants, not just coneflowers. The leaf hoppers ingest something called phytoplasm and transmit it from plant to plant when they feed. Coneflowers, asters, coreopsis and several other kinds of plants are all susceptible.
There really isn’t any method to treat aster yellows. The best thing the gardener can do is remove the infected plant from the garden to prevent it from spreading to other plants. It looks like I’m down one coneflower, it could be worse though!
For more good information on Aster yellow disease visit the Missouri Botanical Garden.
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I had this one year. It was not nice at all. No problem since then (2008) though so there is hope.
What a shame! Here's to hoping that the rest of your plants are okay.
I think I have this on some of my coneflowers. Can dahlias get this?
Eileen
I've noticed it, too Dave….and the heavy rains have taken a toll on my purple coneflowers…More will need to be planted! gail
That's just plain nasty, Dave — but as you pointed out, it could be worse. 🙂
I guess there's always something. It's good you were able to identify this. I had a "weird looking" oriental lily this Spring. All the buds were bunched together and hardly any of them were able to bloom properly. (I did pluck off some of the immature buds to make more room for the others…)
I pulled two earlier this year. No petals. Fortunately, the varieties that I grow can be grown from seeds.
Good info!