I have a similar situation with my New England Aster. It grows huge and starts to dry out from the bottom up. Then the leaves that are still green get some kind of infestation and look mottled. And this all happens well before it starts to bloom in late August. But, once the blooms open, they are a magnet for butterflies and other pollenators, no matter how ugly I think they are. I haven't taken the time or energy to look into it, since I won't use any chemicals any way. I figure nature will balance everything out eventually.

Martha

My Tithonias look horrible too. I thik the leaves do not getting wet then frying in the hot sun. My friend also noticed that the flowers tend to also get smaller. I have one that is pretty now - it was planted later than the others but it is so heavy it has collasped onto the sidewalk. Again the butterflies still love it so there it stays. I'm about ready to put up the others though. Need to do some cleanup in the beds.

How hot has it been there Susan? Mine have a few dried up leaves too. They're still mostly green. We've had LOTS of days in the upper 90s here this summer with the heat index going well over 100. Our actual temperature has gone over 100 only a couple times I think.
I water mine occasionally. I don't think the heat will kill them as long as they don't dry out TOO much. They're native to Mexico I assume. But once those leaves dry out, they're not going to green up again. Either way, there's no flowers down low so it might be nice to plant some zinnias or something in front of them next year to hide the bottom half.

They start out very large and green, Christie, but by this time of year, it's the interior of the plant that get nearly skeletal in appearance. I only grew one plant this year, and it got 6' tall and about 10' in diameter. I went ahead and trimmed it back this morning, so we'll see how it responds. I think this must just be what happens as it ages. I have some later planted ones, too, out front that have not yet reached the "ugly" stage. Still green and leafy. I just figured they would take the heat better than they have since they are tropical plants.

It has been so hot here. Today our heat index is 110. I try to just get out in the morning and inside by 10 a.m. Too hot to be outside after that.

Susan

Probably about 80% or more of everything that grows here starts to look ragged about this time of year, Susan - southern magnolia trees, American beauty berry and lantana are some of the few things that come to mind quickly that still look really good now.
I didn't grow tithonia this year, but your description sounds just like mine in years past. If they're blooming, they can still be used though, and I'm sure the butterflies don't care! :)
Sherry

Susan, I have the Fiesta Del Sol here, and it has that same issue. The flowers are gorgeous and plentiful, but the foliage looks just horrible. I have always assumed that it was just the nature of the plant.

Thanks everyone - I guess I will just chalk it up to being the nature of the plant then. I sure don't want to make it very prominent in the garden anymore - that's for sure. The neighbors probably think I'm abusing the poor thing and may call the plant police!

I will let it live out its life this year, but next year I will have to find another location for it. This one was a volunteer that came up right by the sidewalk. Last year, I grew a group of them together and thought maybe the nasty foliage was a result of crowding. This year proved me wrong. Hmmmm....now where am I going to put it. Not an easy task to fit one of these commandos into a small garden.

Susan

I guess I'm lucky. Only one of my tithonias looks pathetic. They definitely like regular watering.

Deanna

You could use a vine to cover the ugly stem. I have a few morning glories that sprouted very late - they have huge leaves. You can let the vines get to a certain height and then keep trimming them back all summer to keep them how you want them.

That's a good idea, the MGs. I have lots of them anyway and can just gather some seed from them to plant with Tithonias next year.

Thanks.

Susan

I've given up on Tithonia - they look terrible.
I've got plenty of other great nectar plants.

Maybe that's what we should do, Christie, just run over them with a truck or something and they'll start growing vertically from the nodes! LOL! :]

I think I will try something else next year, too, Butterflyman. They're just too horrid to grow again, and I have a small yard that I don't want to give over to something that doesn't look halfway decent.

Susan

I'm loving all this discussion of Tithonia as I've been dealing with the same problem the last three years I've grown them. I don't have too much trouble with annuals but what this one wants eludes me. I was really happy to hear other's opinion that this plant just does this foliage die off in late summer. I hate to give up on it because it is such a terrific, intense orange color and looks fabulous in my orange themed containers and a great butterfly magnet. I've tried more water, less water, more food less food, in the ground, in containers and it doesn't matter what I try the same thing happens. I was green with envy last weekend when visiting my friends' gardens to find a gorgeous, full, beautifully green leaved Tithonia in the garden. She says she isn't doing anything special.... Hmmmmm Perhaps I'm trying too hard. LOL
Deanne

Sue's Tithonia 8-28-10
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The foliage on Sue's Tithonia looks great. Very green and lush. Does she live in NH too? If so, it looks like you guys have gotten more rain in NH than we have in MA. We finally got some rain last weekend, but it was very dry before that with no measurable rain for 6 weeks. I was watering them during that time, but only the minimum to keep the plants reasonably healthy as our town had a voluntary outdoor watering ban.

Considering the drought, the foliage on mine looks okay. This pic was taken a couple days ago. They probably would have more flowers by now, except they don't get as much sun as they'd like. Full sun is a scarce commodity in my yard so I carve out the sunnier spots in the back garden for the butterfly plants and veggies.

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I'm growing a lot of tithonia this year and it's worth it for the butterflies and bees, but just in case you didn't know.......there is a dwarf version called Fiesta del Sol and they stay pretty neat and tidy until frost. The water requirements are less than the standard sizes and they seem to stay tidier through the hot and dry parts of summer.

I am wondering if they just don't like our heat. Further up in this thread, Bandjzmom mentions that she grows Fiesta de Sol and has the same issues with the foliage looking terrible.

I'll have to do surf the net and see if there is any research out there on cultivation of this plant. Maybe there is something they need that I am not providing. Like you, Deanneart, I've tried several things with the watering and fertilizing, etc., but it's a bust so far. Your friend's Tithonia looks wonderful! I am envious. Sigh......

Susan

Susan, yes, I'm envious of Sue's Tithonia too! My jaw dropped to the ground when I got a look at that plant. Then when I asked her did she do anything special and she said 'planted it' I just sighed.... Sometimes its all about location.
Deanne

I also loved Sue's photo and wish we could be neighbors! I love beautiful gardens. Here is one area I have Tithonia. I want to know if anyone has tried to cut them back before blooming to keep shorter? All my photo shots of these are with the camera held UP!
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That is an idea, Fanelda. I do that with my Aster oblongifolius because it gets so awful looking in June. I whack it back about a foot and it comes back looking better and ready to bloom in the fall. I may just experiment with that and try it next year - the 3rd and final year for it if it doesn't look better.

Deanne, I'm sure it has something, or maybe everything to do with location, and exposure, and soil, and so on. I just haven't figured it out yet, that's for sure. And, it's such a big plant to try to play with, that I don't have that much available space to give to it for experimentation purposes. I may give it over to those beautiful fields of red Zinnias seen earlier on the forum. Now Zinnias behave much better.

Susan

My red zinnias have gotten a bit top heavy and don't look as good now as they did earlier in the summer. A few fell over when it was windy and some stems broke off. Next year I need to pinch them or something. They're still blooming pretty good but I'm not sure they're going to hold up through the next storm.

Christie, can you stake them up? Mine get pretty wobbly by the end of the year, too, but I just can't get the image of your red zinnias out of my head. I've got to have them next year! You could probably cut a few of them back and I bet it won't be long before they bloom again. I know, it's always a risk when you do that late in the summer, and especially if you're trying to allow the flowers to dry so you'll have seed for next year.

Susan

Susan, The foliage on my tithonia gets droopy looking, but the plants survive and bloom nicely, so I don't really worry about it. The butterflies like the plants, especially the Monarchs. I think the flowers are absolutely beautiful! It was very dry this year and I made sure to keep watering the plants when they were small because I wanted to have them this year. Last year I missed out on planting tithonia and I really missed having them here.

If your Aster oblongifolius is as homely as my Aster laevis, I wouldn't blame you for getting rid of them. They always get so big and gangly if a person doesn't hack them back, and I never get around to doing that. That's just like I didn't get around to dead heading them last year (I think it's a real pain to dead head those things), and now I have asters coming up all over the place up there in that garden. Ugh. I planted them and N.E. asters for the Pearl Crescents and I'm not sure if they use them or not. I saw a ton of PCs this year, so I'm hoping that they lay their eggs on them. After I'm done going through the milkweed for Monarch eggs/cats, going through the rue and all the other BST host plants for eggs, and going through the wild indigo for WID and CS eggs, I'm so tired and have an aching back that the thought of going through that aster jungle isn't high on my priority list. Ha. So they never get hunted. I think it would really be hard to find them in all that foliage if ya know what I mean. Every year I raise at least half a dozen species of cats, but I've never raised Pearl Crescents. Anyway, I know what you mean about the aster foliage if your kind of asters is as unruly as mine. Oh, don't we have our trials and tribulations. ;-)

Another plant that kind bothers me because of its foliage is zinnias. I don't like that they get mildew on them. It looks absolutely horrible, and if I walk there and brush against them, I get itchy. I'm becoming to pretty many things here, it seems. I can't even pick the tomatoes because I get a rash so bad that itches like poison ivy. The rue bothers my skin and I even have a little trouble breathing when I'm in that area too much. After handling tropical milkweed, I can feel a film of something on my skin and that makes me itch. I wash as soon as I'm done in the milkweed patch, but I can feel that stuff on me pretty quickly while I'm still going through the milkweed looking for eggs and/or gathering food for the Monarchs.

About the tithonia, I love that it picks up where some of my other plants leave off. It's blooming until frost (as is the butterfly bush and tropical milkweed), but my coneflowers and other kinds of flowers are done for the year.

Oh, and I don't know why but my Verbena hastata has such a problem with white mold or mildew this year. I don't even know if the buckeyes would lay their eggs on it like that and I've seen two here just this week, only not at the same time. There was just a real pretty fresh one here today.

I love having a variety of plants and watching to see if something new will show up. I have lots of different skippers come to the flowers, especially the Verbena bonariensis, but I don't bother to try to ID them. Maybe some are county records, but I just won't know, I guess. My daughter's camera isn't so great at getting closeups and I don't know if it would be hard for someone (even much more familiar with them than I am) to ID them if I would get any pics of them.

I have had tons of Silver-spotted Skippers this year, and they were usually nectaring on the Verbena bonariensis, so I sat three pots of Amorpha fruticosa up by the verbena, but for some reason they were too snooty to lay eggs on them. I just got some Lespedeza capitata in the ground about a month ago and with the dry weather it's struggling to survive even with my watering the plants. I'm hoping that between those and the A. fruticosa that they'll lay eggs here someday. We don't have any locust trees. If I plant any more trees here, it's going to look like a jungle. :-D

From reading your posts, I've come to the conclusion that you're having just as good (or even better) of a butterfly year than I'm having, and I think this year has been fantastic! I guess we all have to take our turns...the two previous years weren't very good butterfly years here, so this year has given me lots of hope for them.

Cathy

Hi, Cathy - it's always good to hear from you about your plants and your butterflies!

The location I have my Zinnias in this year has been a good one. Gets plenty of sun and good air circulation and I haven't had any mildew on them despite our high humidity this summer.

Tomatoes did terrible this year in this horrid heat and humidity.

My aster doesn't reseed so I don't have to worry about lots of seedlings at least. Neither does my other Aster tartaricus 'Jindai'.

The Monarchs, Gulf Frits and Cloudless Sulphurs have had a good time with the Dwarf Red Porterweed in the garden this year. It is new, and it is not hardy, but supposedly reseeds. It is also a fave of the hummingbirds. The flowers emerge on the long, lizard-like stems that grow in a wild fashion on the plant, and the flowers emerge in whirls around that stem. So, when the hummers nectar they go round and round and round the flowers. They look like they might get dizzy, but they sure enjoy that nectar!

I am not doing well growing Butterfly Bushes right now. I lost two this year - White Profusion and Peacock. The Bicolor is doing fine.

I bet your garden is lovely, Cathy. Up north of us, things stay green like they don't here. Pretty much burned up all around me. If I didn't water, mine would look really bad too, and some of it does despite watering.

Susan

I've had a hard time with Tithonia this year too--it's been sooooooo dry. A river that runs through Jaffrey, NH is completely dry. The only Tithonia that's doing ok is one that's near my hose and gets water regularly.

Even the mint this year has been kept in check because it's so dry. I don't think the New England Asters are going to do too much this year either--they're mostly all brown now. I just go with the flow (or the lack thereof).

Oh, and the deer kept munching the tips of the Tithonia that I had planted a little further away from the house.

Next year.... :)

Well, no need to worry about that big old ugly Tithonia. Mother Nature took care of it the other night in our big wind/rain event, by knocking it off its huge stem. It now lies dead on the front lawn waiting for big trash pickup Wednesday.

I have 3 others that are just starting to bloom, though, and are much smaller, but nicer looking. I think it is probably good to succession plant the seeds of Tithonia.

Berner Girl - I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE New Hampshire! I have been up in the White Mountain area, and to Concord to see the gold domed capitol building and wandering the streets of Concord. My hotel was in Merrimack I believe, and the river is so pretty with all those old factory buildings.

Susan