I am not a newcomer to gardening, but am a newcomer at learning how to care for my plants. I have a gardening friend who knows so much that it boggles my mind. She is always talking about aster yellows on her coneflowers and she quit growing them because it always affects them. From her description, I know a bit about what it should look like and I am sure one of my plants had it a couple of years ago. Being of Irish descent and stubborn besides, I decided I wasn't going to pull out that pretty plant and just left it alone.
The next year there was no sign of any problem. In my garden down by the barn, there is a new thing that happened this year. All the cone flower foliage is really healthy and there are tons of flowers, but a few flowers here and there have no petals on the prickly centers.
What do all of you do when you suspect this aster yellows??? My main focus is Daylilies and I am wondering if they can be affected by this problem also.
Thanks for all your expert advice.

There is a coneflower discussion thread in perennials forum
The thread "Coneflowers" in Perennials forum

There was some discussion of Aster yellows there. Long and short is that people often confuse Aster yellows with a mite infestation. There are some similar symptoms. I do not know for sure I do not believe Aster Yellows infect Daylilies.

Perhaps someone with more knowledge will chime in here.

Again, welcome to ATP!

I googled for Daylily Diseases and found this: http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

And, all the way near the bottom of this page to "What Diseases Affect Daylilies": http://www.daylilies.org/AHSfa...

Aster yellows can affect any plant in the asteraceae family. It is spread by leafhoppers. I had it in my yard one hot summer and lost quite a few coneflowers. The flowers turn weird looking and the foliage will start to yellow and the plant looks sick.

I also have some mites every year, and they can cause all kinds of weird distortions on the flowers. They're not deadly though. I generally just cut off obviously infected blossoms when I notice them, and trash them. But overall the plant doesn't look as sickly as with aster yellows.

Karen

Karen
Your description sounds much more like mite damage then Aster Yellows. As Karen pointed out you need to look at the leaves and overall health of the plant not just the flowers.

Oh that info sounds more promising, so for now I am going with mites, lol. Thanks for taking the time to answer my question!!

Karen, google images might be helpful. Here's a good page, too:

http://www.clemson.edu/extensi...

other Karen