I've seen earwigs eat the petals off the coneflowers so nothing is left but the cone. (And then there are the ones my Dad bought from Wayside-and paid a fortune for- that don't have petals;~) These probably aren't related to your problem.

Those nasty earwigs have been in all my other gardens, but I did not see evidence of them in this one, but maybe!? I will have to put my cups of vegetable oil out there too and see what happens! The small petals that I do see don't look bug bitten, but maybe the bare cones are an earwig problem and the others are another problem!

Thanks for the response.

This is probably a "duh" answer, but...

My coneflowers, when budding, form the cones first and then develop flowers. Is it possible that the flowers are just immature?

I was thinking the same thing as ladychroe - are you sure they are mature blooms? None of my coneflowers have begun actually blooming yet, and I'm in zone 5ish.

It's not stupidity. When you look in your garden infrequently, it seems like stuff just pops up, just like that. When you slow down and watch the process, you see stuff you never noticed before, and it's facinating.

I've always wanted to see what a time-lapse video of a coneflower opening would look like. It's cool how it forms one part of the flower at a time - first the cone, all green, and then the little petals come out like tiny pale needles and eventually get large and colorful as the center darkens.

I only have a few coneflowers that have fully developed petals, but yes, the cones start first, then the petals.

However, if they NEVER develop petals and they are just greenish "cones" all the time that is a virus called Aster Yellows. In that case the plants should be dug up and thrown away.

But as everyone mentioned, don't worry yet :)

Thanks everyone! I am out of town now for a couple of days, so hopefully when I return home I will see some progress!

Jodi

I'm glad you asked this question, because mine look exactly the same way. Yesterday I finally saw tiny bits of petals starting to form.

Well I definitely have some "naked" cones, but now other "normal" cones/buds are developing and blooming. I do see a definite difference between the bare cones and the unflowered buds, however whatever caused the cones to have no petals has stopped with the newer buds. Hopefully I have seen the last of this weirdness!

Thanks to all who replied.

Strange... I had the same thing happen this year here in Maryland. The earlier flowers on the plants were the ones to form incomplete petals or no petals, though the cones looked normal. Now, the later flowers look perfectly normal and have full petal rings. This lack of petals seemed more prominant this year - perhaps an insect pest of some sort.

Interesting thread - thanks for posting it. I will be posting also to the Growing From Seed Message Board.

Two years ago, I bought some seeds from ebay that were listed as having come from an open pollinated bed that had several of the "new" echinaceas, such as Razzmatazz, Sunrise, Orange Meadowbrite, & Prairie Frost. A friend has a greenhouse and she planted some of the seeds for me. Seven seeds sprouted and she potted up the plants, growing them for the rest of the summer in the pots. They did not bloom, so she planted the pot and all in the ground for the winter. They came back this spring and she repotted them, and brought them into the greenhouse to try to get early bloom. Well, several bloomed, but they have either NO petals, or very tiny, insignificent petals. The cones form as regular cone flowers, and the cones are surrounded by greenery, just like regular cone flowers, but then the cones ripen and die, just without petals. I know there were no insects eating the petals, in this case. They just have not formed or are VERY tiny. My friend has brought me the plants, and her advice is to put them in the compost pile. I wonder if I should buy them some time before I decide to compost them. I wonder if these "hybrids of hybrids" are going to pan out and become regular cone flowers, or are they going to be petal-less. Has anyone else had a problem like this?

Linda

Well, an update.

My purple coneflower (not sure which one, was established when we moved in four years ago, but definitely not one of the new designer ones) has gotten worse. About 75% of the plant is now just cones, no petals ever forming. I have watched very closely, there are no bugs, and it definitely does not look like earwig damage-believe me I see enough of that to know what it looks like!

These are not buds, but fully formed naked cones. This also happened to my Razzmatazz this year, which is very disappointing as it was beautiful the previous 2-3 seasons.

This has not affected any of my other coneflowers in the garden. I will try to post pictures if you are interested, but it is simply a healthy looking plant with few to none, or very small petals. I have done a search online and can find nothing, spoke to a couple of nursery owners and they have not heard of it. I think I am going to take the plants out soon, but just wanted to check one more time to see if anyone else has heard of this and may know what it is.

Thanks for reading!

In case anyone else has this problem, an update. I removed the purple coneflower and Razzmatazz about a month ago. My other coneflowers did not seem affected. Now, 2nd year Sunrise which began so big and hearty with big beautiful blooms is now beginning to develop seed heads only, as well as my first year Summer Sky and Sundown. (This problem appeared on my established coneflowers prior to my adding the new coneflowers this year.)

Just yesterday I spoke with a nursery owner that feels I have some kind of blight and to cut the affected coneflowers down to the ground, being sure to disinfect the pruners after each plant, and of course removing the plant material. I am not sure if this will help, but I think I may try, I hate to lose all of the remaining unaffected coneflowers and other plants in my garden. I keep a fairly clean garden, never leaving old plant matter and keeping my pruners cleaned with alcohol. Does anyone have any further insight into this?

Thanks for your help! Jodi

I have 3 big beds with tons of purple coneflowers and started noticing this problem a year or two ago with many of my coneflower plants (I don't have any of the newer hybrids). I used to chalk it up to some weird mutation, as I never noticed a pest problem or discoloration/blight problem. I usually just deadhead the cones with no petals and hope for the best. I have noticed this year that on some of my coneflowers the first bloom or two were 'normal' looking but then the subsequent blooms (after deadheading the spent ones) were lone cones. Last year was worse than this year, however. I wouldn't worry too much about your other plants being affected. I have many different plants in the same beds with the affected coneflowers and they have never been bothered. Also, I should probably tell you I rarely disinfect my pruners (I know it's bad, but I'm lazy) and the vast majority of my plants were planted from seeds of one or two store-bought plants about 7 years ago. I would love to figure this out!

Look up aster yellows. If that's the problem, you need to get rid of all affected plants.

Definitely not aster yellows, but thank you for the thought.

It is good (I guess!)to know that there are a few others out there with this problem as well.

Thanks for all the help!

Jodi

I have a friend who is in the medical profession. Also happens to have a 7 acre hosta garden thats been featured in several national magazine. She assures me that rubbing alcohol will not sterilize clippers and the thing to use is dilute 1:10 bleach. She uses Clorox wipes between cuts to sterilize her clippers, or has a bucket of dilute bleach that she dips in between cuts - thats actually the easiest I think.

That is good to know. Thanks! I probably infected everyone in the garden...

Jodi

Mine, too. They are 4 years old. Only the purple ones - orange, yel, white all blooming normally. and the two sets of purple are more than 100 yards from each other, yet both with no petals. That would be one tall bunny (to eat petals).

12 year old post... you get an award! Most likely your coneflowers have a mite issue causing the lack of petals. You can post a pic and I can double check

Mine are doing the same thing this year. Did your petals ever form? Did you figure out what was going on?

lack of petals is 99% mites. Cut the infected heads off, cut down the entire plant a few weeks earlier in the fall then they would normally brown out, and clean up all leaf and stem debris below..... get rid of all of that. This will reduce the numbers of mite eggs overwintering.