I haven't paid much attention to disease in my plants. I take the "what doesn't kill them makes them stronger" approach. But, if the disease might spread to other plants, and that could be avoided by removing it, then I'd dig it out. The real question is whether taking it out will protect the rest of your plants. If not, I'd keep it as long as you find it attractive enough to find enjoyment. It is beautiful in that picture.

Martha

I always pull those coneflowers that look weird. I let my coneflowers reseed. So I can always find them everywhere in the garden. I love to see goldfinches going gaga over them.

It's definitely coneflower rosette mite in Rouge's pictures.

I feel sure that coneflower rosette mite is coming into our garden from breeders and/or nurseries with infested stock.

Picture below (today):

As of 5(+) years ago, there was also a group of 3 'Hot Papaya' immediately to the right of and behind the lungwort. It was removed, heavily infested with the mite, several years ago.

The mite doesn't appear to have spread to the 'Summer Sky' and it also doesn't appear to have spread to a clump of 'Magnus' which was 10 foot to the right of the 'Hot Papaya'.

At the same time, I have removed heavily mite infested Echinacea from locations in our flower beds which were nowhere near any other existing Echinacea.

Judging from my experience, perhaps a lot of the recent and current nursery stock available is infested. Perhaps the use of industrial miticides keeps the mite under control while the plants are with the breeders and/or in other greenhouses.

This post was edited by SunnyBorders on Thu, Jul 17, 14 at 11:49

Love that daisy SB. What variety is it?

And not too far away from the infected "Pow Wow" I spy a bee revelling in this healthy specimen. We must do all we can for those bees.

Rouge, it's a lost form which I'm currently following up.

Last year my Echinacea didn't look too good, between the sunflower worm, mites, earwigs, and a dry month of July. I'm happy to say they are just getting going and overall looking pretty good this year!