Yesterday, I had to say good-bye to 6 purple coneflowers. I had started them from seed our first winter here. Thankfully, I still have 5 that are in good shape. What could have happened? you ask. Well, I noticed some slow growth and funky reddish leaves on them. And then the flowers weren't purple but a greenish-yellow color. So, finally, I decided to do what any good modern-aged gardener would do and I "googled" echinacea turning yellow and found my plants were gonners in about 3 seconds. Apparently, some leaf hopper (bug) must have infected my plants with something called a phytoplasma, a plant pathogenic micro-organism. It could be transfered to other plants (apparently, it can affect a wide range of plants). So I pulled them out. To make myself feel better, I went to Hy-vee and got a pink knockout rose and an endless summer hydrangea 40 percent off. Oh, and the lady there gave me some seed packets for free (nice) - they'll still work next spring I'm sure. All in all, I'm kinda excited to see how the new plants fair.
4 comments:
I know how you feel. A gardener comes to love certain flowers. Glad you were able to replace them in your garden with two very pretty species.
(okay, okay, I've been reading your blog for quite some time. Let's see if I can figure out how to leave a comment...)
I'm sorry to hear about your coneflowers. I have one of those and love it.
Yeah! I think it worked. That wasn't so bad-
Kamie, you crack me up!
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