A crazy new coneflower cultivar, ready to take the gardening world by storm, right?
Unfortunately no. (Too bad, because I already have the cultivar name picked out: 'Half Sassed'.)
It's an indication that no, I did not remember to pull out the Echinacea plants that were infected with Aster Yellows last year.
They obviously didn't recover over the winter.
Or would you say they half recovered?
This one's similar but worse:
It almost looks like a combination of three colors.
At least all of my coneflowers haven't been infected yet -- but many haven't started blooming yet, so we'll see.
At least this is an affliction that produces interesting (or even beautiful) results. That's what makes it so hard to pull the plants out. They're not dead or dying -- they just look strange.
Well, half strange at least.
.
Call me weird, but I actually like the look of the virus-infected plants. It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland somehow...
ReplyDeleteI agree with Gerhard! I love the 'sick' flowers. They are over the top cool!!
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a bizzare disease, I remember the first time I saw it in the garden and had no idea what was going on! I used to feel bad about pulling the diseased plants, but not anymore, especially as they are so easy to grow (and I almost always have a few seedlings scattered around anyway.
ReplyDeleteI concur - I think they are very cool!
ReplyDelete