Here is another photo.

You may have asters yellow. No, it's not only restricted to this one variety. It is a problem of epidemic proportions here in Europe. They are most probably already infected in laboratories(if not asters yellow, then something else). The problem here is , nobody sees there is a problem.

This post was edited by wieslaw59 on Wed, Jul 3, 13 at 17:29

Glad you posted this, mongoice, because one of my echinacea plants displays this same condition.

And thank you, wieslaw59 for the diagnosis. I googled "asters yellow" and will destroy this plant tomorrow.

Molie

Thank you, wieslaw59. I have heard of aster yellows before and hoped it was not the case for my echinacea. It looks like that I have to remove the whole plant. Sad!

You may have asters yellow.

And this is just one reason why I will never purchase another coneflower for the foreseeable future. And the ones I still have will be shovel pruned as soon as they show signs of disease.

Looks more like eriophyid mites to me, but it's hard to tell as the symptoms are similar.

This plus "Asters Yellow" plus "sunflower moth"...no more new echinacea for this gardener!

Rouge, I am having great luck starting Echinacea varieties from seed. I am thinking that the plants are less likely to have the Aster Yellows if it is spread via asexual propagation methods (tissue culture).

No you can't get the unique cultivars and doubles from seed, but I'm not crazy about those anyway. I have yet to warm up to the doubles, and haven't liked the hybrids because of their weak performance over time and I don't like the seedlings they throw off. No doubt there are some nice ones, but I'm not going to ferret them out, and am pretty sick of spending money on perennials that don't last very long in the gardens.

Last year one of my coneflowers had a few deformed buds and to me it looked more like mites. I cut out the affected parts and had no more symptoms for the rest of the summer. This year the plant had disfigurement in the same section, leading me to suspect aster yellows. As I understand it, the virus slowly spreads throughout the plant.

I think a lot if the photos of asters yellow online are plants in rather advanced stages of infection.

I agree with trovesoftrilliums. I checked my plants again this morning. Besides a few deformed buds, the rest of the plant seems OK. There are still many buds and a few bloom normally. I hate to dig out the whole plant, so I cut off the problemed ones. There is an Echinacea powwow wild berry nearby with more serious problems on leaves, so I removed that one. We have had abnormal large amount of rain in central New York since spring and is not as hot as last summer. The cold and wet weather must attribute to or exacerbate the spreading of the disease. There were not so many deformed buds in Pink Doubt and Powwow wild berry last year.
I decide to keep an eye on the plant for the time being. If it get worse, I will remove the whole plant. Thank you for all the inputs posted on this topic.

Well, I'd have welcomed a chance to see Pink Double Delight return this spring in any condition. I bought three at a very reputable NH nursery last summer and none returned.
I just saw a recommedation that all the hybrids should not be allowed to flower the first season. Their fibrous root systems take longer to establish than the species, which have tap roots. removing the flowers directs more energy towards the roots.
Don't know if that's true, but I'd have been happy to try it instead of losing them.They were mightty expensive annuals...

I would bet the farm that yours just has mites. Search around for web sites that compare mites and asters yellows. I am only seeing the clustered cones that mites cause... But not green petals or the witches broom growth as asters yellows causes. Mites are do not require you to destroy the plant.

You may have asters yellow. No, it's not only restricted to this one variety. It is a problem of epidemic proportions here in Europe.

And it has been epidemic in my NAmerican garden also the past couple of seasons. This coupled with "sunflower moth larvae" in the cones will likely have me removing all echinacea from my property this season as I see these issues reappearing. The complete unreliability of coneflowers seems a bit similar to the wide spread health issues of impatiens walleriana with its downy mildew epidemic.

mmmm, afraid echinaceas (apart from basic seed sown pinks), along with coreopsis, (all of 'em), smaller delphiniums (tatsiense, belladonna et al) and sidalceas have not been a feature of my gardens for the last few years - too temperamental, too sporadic to jostle for scarce resources in the hurly-burly of my garden beds.
On the other hand, am getting rather fed up with the rampaging rudbeckias and asters............