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Several years ago some of my campanulas turned white. I thought that was great, provided some variety.

Then some of the camas turned white, then all of them. Not so great. I liked the lilac color. 0

Last year one pure white iris appeared, this year there are 7.

A delphinium turned white. I had divided a big stand of it into five sections, and the biggest section turned white. Not only white but it turned very strong and aggressive; it grew six feet tall. It was as if all the energy that went into colors was now going into just growth. As if it's easier to be white than colored.

All these flowers are doing just fine except for losing their color. But I am alarmed. It seems like whiteness is a virus that is attacking my flowers and spreading. I never heard of it but is definitely happening.

I think I should root out the white ones and destroy them. What do you think?

Very odd, but yes, if you don't want all of them to be white, you should get rid of the white ones. It seems that the white ones are more vigorous (as witness the giant delphinium) and will tend to take over.

I have heard about flowers losing their color if they are in more sun (or more shade) than they like.

I found a discussion of this phenomenon here: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/20518 ... g-to-white

It didn't seem to really have any answers: perhaps stress, perhaps if the white flowers are on a new plant, the plant reseeded itself and didn't reproduce true from seed ....

Here's a discussion of this here at helpfulgardener re coneflowers: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9417

Thanks, that was a good discussion. I don't believe the theory about the plant re-seeding -- I know what plants are in my garden, they don't start over from seed without my noticing. Also I don't believe about the soil changing. If it changed it would do so gradually, whereas the color change is sudden. So that leaves root damage.

Nobody mentioned a virus, that doesn't seem to be a possibility.

I'm sad the colors are gone but no longer frightened that it will happen to all my plants. Thanks again.

doesn't necessarily mean that it will spread like a virus. But it does seem that the white ones are more vigorous and will tend to take over.

My experience with saving petunia seed was that each generation grown from seed tended to be paler, until I was growing white petunias. Not exactly relevant, but it suggests that sometimes the original plants from which we get all our hybrids was white and they just tend to revert.