Lowes today had gotten in some large pots of Pink Double Delight coneflowers. They were large, covered in blooms but the plants looked awful. The leaves had browned spots on the edges and I noticed some of the stems looked like they had purple spots.
My friend who was shopping with me today wanted one but I urged her against it. They were $12.98 and I thought that was too much for such rough looking plants. My main concern is they may have some disease. Does anyone know if this could come from just getting rough treatment in shipping or maybe from being potbound or not getting sufficient water? Or is it likely they're diseased?
Question about some bad looking coneflowers
I wouldn't buy them if they looked like that. I'm guessing it's some kind of fungal disease as is probably the result of too much water actually. Personally I'm never all that wild about buying a plant that looks diseased and taking the risk that it might infect other plants at my home.
That's what I was thinking. I just thought you all might know what could have caused them to look so bad.
It's hard to tell without seeing what they looked like. It sounds like they were too damp, and staying too damp somewhere along the way prior to you seeing them. If it's a fungal thing it could easily spread throughout the whole plant.
impossible to tell without pictures.
could be anything from transit stress to disease. if they had just arrived, i would lean towards transit stress.
Well, I went there (Lowe's) this afternoon and I took this photo of their Pink DD.
These are some Meringue and Coconut Lime (taller ones).
They all look very healthy to me.
And this is one of the :Pink DDs I bought from Lowe's weeks ago. It has grown quite a bit.
The plants look fine to me and the foliage looks healthy. I've just received my first Pink Double Delight so I'm not sure about the little bit or coloration in the stems. That may be perfectly normal. There are some varieties of coneflowers that have solid dark purple stems, and that is perfectly normal for those varieties.
Jon
Super nice photo. The plant looks very healthy to me.
The ones here looked nothing like that. The blooms were beautiful but the foliage was a lot sparser and had dead patches all over it. I mean brown dead. I'll check them again this week and see if they look any better. If it was rough handling in shipping, maybe they'll perk back up.
Oops, my mistake. I wasn't focused realizing those weren't your photos. Sorry about that. It couldn't hurt to check them out again this week. If they still look run down I'd stay away from them. They just may have something new this week and you didn't see last week. I always like to check out the nurseries every couple of weeks, nothing really looking for anything in particular. Usually I leave empty handed...but every once in awhile there's some good surprise that's just come in. I like plant hunting on Thurs and Fri best as that's when places seem to have the best selections of new things.
Jon
Pink Double Delight is a top notch plant. Any of you who don't have this one should pick it up!
Good to hear. Glad I picked one up recently.
They were new - they had just arrived. They were the only double pink ones they had. The Meringue plants looked terrific but my friend loves pink. They didn't know if they were getting in any more of the pink ones.
She's going shopping in her town tomorrow and is going to see if her Lowes has any that look good.