You may have a mite infestation. I was growing a crop of gerberas for a wedding and noticed the flowers seemed to not be aging as they should. They'd come out lovely and in a day or two be spent looking and unthrifty, as would the older leaves. I treated them all with insecticidal soap and now they are crisp, leaves shine and flowers fresh looking until they are naturally spent. Sadly to say they didn't snap out of it in time for the wedding, but hey, they look great now!

I was looking at these this spring for my window boxes. I was told by the very knowledgable staff at the nursery that these are very susceptable to.... now I forgot the term. But she was telling me that they deteriorate if you get the foliage wet repeatedly, so they were not a good choice for the box.

My guess is that washing them is a cure worse than the disease.

Crown rot is the term she used.

Hello all,

Today, I'm working on gardening the Gerba daisy.

In researching it, I found a great website that answers a lot of questions above, and many that wen't asked. I hope this link helps!

This is our first season with the outdoor daisy -- they always do well, then are turned to leaf crisps covered in molds, and blooming stops. Leaf production continues normally, but new leaves quickly pick up the fungus.

After reading, its clear its various fungi cannot be killed and is spreading to other plants. I must follow one fungus treatment method (extreme). Every sick leaf is carefully cut off - inside a plastic bag even to minimize spread. Every leaf is cut until only regular leafs remain. Water from the top (wash it off) and use 10 50 10 to encourage foliage.

The plant can survive and hopefully, bounce back hardy and blooming.

We are in Zone 9b, & where the Gerba flowers all-year and does not die back... we must either overcome this obstacle or destroy the Gerba plants. Don't wan't that sadness!

Here is a link that might be useful: Questions - to British Columbia's extension service from theUniversity.