Cut Flower Updates: August 29, 2025

The late summer fields are still pumping out colorful blooms, with the palette starting to shift to the bright magentas, pale yellows, and deep oranges of fall. One fall staple is African marigold, Tagetes erecta, a sturdy, prolific crop that floral designers love for autumn arrangements, bouquets, and boutonnieres. The more delicate French marigold, Tagetes patula, is also a crowd pleaser with a wide range of design possibilities. Both are important flowers for cultural celebrations, including Indian weddings and religious ceremonies, and the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos.

With proper care (check out this MS State factsheet), marigolds can produce long, bountiful stems for weeks and have an impressive vase life. They generally have few pest and disease issues; spider mites can be a problem in hot, dry weather, and slugs and grasshoppers like to feed on the foliage. Occasionally, marigolds are plagued by an interesting disease called aster yellows.

Aster yellows impacts flowering crops across many plant families, but is often noticed by growers in aster crops like echinacea, black-eyed Susan, cosmos, and marigold. The disease is caused by a bacteria-like pathogen called a phytoplasma that is vectored from plant to plant by leafhoppers. It causes stunting and deformation of the stem, foliage, and flowerhead, and once plants are infected, there is no cure. Many herbaceous plants will die within one season of infection.

Scout often for discolored and misshapen plants, and promptly remove plants that appear to be infected. Manage weeds around your flower beds, as many common weed species like ragweed, dandelion, and thistle can be aster yellows hosts. Finally, floating row cover can be helpful in preventing leafhopper feeding on susceptible species. You can read more about aster yellows in this factsheet from the University of Maryland.