Discovering Gazania
For retail bench appeal, we found a super impressive front-door display tray: Gazania ‘Kiss & Tell’. This is a very colorful daisy-like flower—about 2-1/2 inches wide—that comes in a wild mix of colors and bi-colors.
The 1202 trays make great BOOM displays! That is, buy (8) flats, drop the flats onto the bench and BOOM—there’s a great-looking display that flirts as you walk by. Don’t forget—a big, colorful bench will deliver a presentation you can see from the parking lot.
Most daisy-like flowers are white, or maybe cream. Not these. This crop will fly off the bench because the plants have a popular shape that men like, with the wild colors that make filling a garden bed with color easy. Each tray has a little bit of everything.
As a bedding plant, Gazanias are mound-shaped, about 8 to 10 inches high. They carry about 10 or so blooms on short stems, and their vase performance is superior. Gazanias re-bloom, so more flowers will return to the plant as the season carries into the fall.
Compact plants are nice and tight, so you can replant a few of them into larger containers for a very unique look.
Overall, they are heavy sun consumers, and stand up well to summer heat in places like TX, OK, CA—and Australia! Each location reports solid performance, so Gazania can tolerate a dry spell. Of course, flower production is best when plants are watered regularly, but go lightly—they despise wet roots and overwatering will push down their performance.
Gazania has been around since the late 1700s, but it’s a mystery why the industry has passed this one by—it is really a hidden treasure!
