Gaillardia is a simple flower,
Beautiful bright gold.
When it just blossoms
It reminds me of chamomile.What a wonderful aroma!
Bugs are circling above the flower.
When the petals fade,
They will turn into balls.
I love yellow flowers and I have a lot of them in my flower beds: chrysanthemums, coreopsis, sedum with tiny star-shaped flowers, ligularia, regular yellow calendulas, clematis tangutica with bell-shaped flowers, lilies, marigolds, roses, rudbeckia.
When I buy seeds, my eyes always fall on packets of yellow flowers. This season, I planted several new yellow flowers: swamp iris, two types of heliopsis, yellow echinacea, lemon-flowered calendula, and golden ball. While picking mushrooms in the forest, I came across a blooming golden ball. It grew on the edge of a forest road; passing cars simply ran over the flowers, leaving them broken on the ground. Naturally, I dug up the small bush. How it got there is unknown, most likely from nearby dachas. I was very happy; I like the golden ball; I had one growing there, but it either froze or got soaked. It was once very popular with dacha owners, its double, sunny-yellow flowers peeking out from behind fences.
In this note I will tell you about gaillardia, a variety called Amber.
I grew gaillardia from seeds, sowed several at home in March, and transplanted them into the flower bed in May.
It bloomed in the year of planting; in mid-August, yellow, rather large flowers began to bloom.
What does gaillardia look like?
Gaillardia 'Yantar' is a perennial, cold-hardy, and easy-to-care-for plant. The bush grows 60-70 cm tall, with numerous flower stems. The leaves are oval and green.
The inflorescences are large baskets, with bright yellow ligulate petals, the middle is also yellow, but the petals are tubular.
As the flower grows, the center takes on a spherical shape. When the petals fall, the centers remain on the stem, containing the seeds.
A flowering bush with delicate flowers is fragrant and loved by all kinds of insects.
Flowering lasts from July until frost; buds, flowers, and seed balls can be present on the bush at the same time.
The yellow balls on green stems are impressive; it seems that if you just tear off the stem, the breeze will carry the balls into the sky.
Where to plant gaillardia
Gaillardia loves sunny places, it seems to me that all yellow flowers adore the sun and simply will not bloom in the shade.
The soil should be light and loose. It's essential to add compost under the bush in the spring; manure will only harm the plant. After rain, the soil should be loosened.
Gaillardia doesn't like excessive watering and can be susceptible to powdery mildew and gray mold. If the plant becomes ill, it's recommended to treat it with Topaz or Fitosporin.
My gaillardia is growing in full sun, in a slightly elevated bed. It's doing quite well, even surviving the prolonged rains and cold snap in early August. There are no diseases, but powdery mildew has appeared on the leaves of the calendula and delphinium. I had to pull out the calendula bushes at the peak of their bloom; spraying and watering with mildew control didn't help.
At the beginning of summer, the plant should be fed with nitrogen fertilizers, and then with potassium fertilizers for better flowering. However, even without additional fertilizer, the plant thrives.
Gaillardia has no pests; neither aphids nor caterpillars gnaw at the leaves, probably because they are slightly pubescent.
Here in Siberia, gaillardia overwinters well; you just need to cover it with foliage in the fall. I trim the bush and lay the stems on the gaillardia. In winter, we cover the flowerbed with snow from the paths.
In the spring, gaillardia sprouts later than other flowers. I even thought it had frozen. Only a few shoots appear where the dead stems once were, and new shoots emerge slightly to the side, away from the old roots. Perhaps this is a characteristic of gaillardia.
Gaillardia is easily propagated by seed, and the bush can also be divided. I don't know if gaillardia self-sows, but I scatter ripe seeds near the bush in the fall; perhaps they will sprout in the spring. It's also best to tie up gaillardia, as the stems bend under the weight of the flowers, wind, and rain and can break.