Finally!!! A tiki that is sure it's a tiki!

OK, so some of you may have read about my Tiki Torch saga on another forum/thread so you won't be surprised that I want to celebrate the end of the saga properly. I REALLY love orange blooms and wanted a Tiki badly. I ordered it back in January from an online gardener. Well, they delayed their May ship date until June b/c "plant size wasn't up to their standards" b/c of bad weather. So, I waited and my plants arrived in June. What arrived was a rotting mess (4 plugs, 2 DOA and the other 2 microscopically small--don't think they could qualify as real plugs). Having paid $20 bucks each for them, I complained and received a prompt refund.

On to the next online vendor who shipped the wrong plant (or so he and I both thought) and sent just the ugliest thing that I had ever seen that ever resembled an echinacea. At the bottom a pic of what they sent.

So, the vendor said that they would send me a replacement Tiki and they couldn't figure out how I had gotten what they I.D.ed as a Harvest Moon. Harvest Moon? Uhhh, definately not a Harvest Moon that I had ever seen.

So, now I'm thinking I'm never getting a Tiki and had never seen them locally (missed them earlier in the season at a local nursery). I was browsing later at that same nursery and what does my eye spy hidden in the thicket beside the bridge FAR away from the echinaceas? A beautiful Tiki in bloom all by itself!!! Knowing that that was the area that they stashed plants so that they could see the colors of the bloom before customers bought all of them, I went over and grabbed it! I mean, what if the replacement plant from the online vendor comes as that ugly yellow thing again? I wasn't taking any chances.

I have had my local nursery Tiki for about a week now and received my replacement Tiki the day after I purchased the local Tiki. The replacement had a yellow bloom, too! BUT it didn't seem quite so ugly b/c the cone was a nice green color.

OK, here is the funny part of my story. I walked out this morning and what do I see? Of course, my nice big local Tiki looking great...but, what's this? The other two looking beautiful and quite orange? Like a Tiki should? Now, It looks like both echs from the online vendor were in fact Tikis but must have been faded from lack of sunshine in the shipping box. They are gorgeous today and quite orange. It took the first one pictured here more than a week to color up. I even posted a pic on another forum for an I.D. of this guy and everyone swore it was no echinacea but some strange rudibeckia. Go figure.

Now I have three Tikis--YEAH!!!!!


Thanks for indulging me in my long post, but I just had to get that out! Here is my mystery yellow now gone Tiki:

By the way, here is a pic of my local nursery Tiki:

Wowsers, what a story. Although I don't receive a ton of mislabeled plants, I have received a few here and there. The problem is that by the time they bloom I oftentimes can't remember the exact retailer I purchased it from. I would have grabbed the "Tiki Torch" at the local nursery also...just like you did. There's nothing wrong with a spare plant. I've had one "Tiki Torch" since last year and it just never seems to really get going. It does bloom some consistently, but the bloom size is usually small on short stems. The plant has never really grown to a substantial height.

Good luck with Tiki Torch. Please update us next year on how many of your plants return next spring. I bought 4 last year and only 1 returned. I'm giving Tiki Torch one more chance this year. I bought a bigger plant at a local nursery. If this sucker doesn't return next year...no more Tiki Torches! LOL.

LOL. I've said that "no more" on a few of them. Somehow my fingers get reattached to the computer and they start typing in my mailing address all on their own. How DOES this happen???
Jon

Jon - I actually found a Sundown with no quilled petals. They had a new truckload of these and out of all of them only 1 had no distorted blooms at all! I still didn't buy it. The blooms were faded and it reminded me of how bad these looked in the garden. LOL.

They cannot sell these! They are marking them down. The girl told me they have tons of them and still haven't sold one yet. I think people are learning!

Oh well. I still love my "Sundown". It has been very good to me. Maybe they just need to hype them up a bit!!! LOL

Right there with ya, Sundown is still one of my favs!

It really comes down to our personal tastes and how well each individual plant is taken care of and performs for us. That's why when we list our favorite and least favorite Echinacea the results are "all over the board".