Garden and Flowers

Gazanias have a trailing habit and look up at the sky with their great eyes – flowers that sometimes grow to about 3V4 in wide. Those of the species are orange, with a curious blackish-green ring round the center. Small white dots frequently light up from within that ring. The leaves are green on top, but white and feltlike underneath. Gazania rigens is the ancestor of quite a number of cultivars which were developed by selection and hybridization with other species. The plants in the Daybreak Series are currently the best-known examples. Gazania rigens ‘Daybreak Garden Sun’ has a ring round its center in a shade of green that I can describe only by likening it to the sunlit back of a plover. The petals change from orange in the center to yellow round the edges.

Gazania rigens ‘Daybreak Red Stripe’ has that same gleaming shade of deep green round its center. The flowers are orange yellow with a brownish-red stripe down the center of each petal. Both cultivars have received Fleuroselect awards: ‘Red Stripe’ was awarded one of the gold medals in 1998. Both of them are now cultivated on a vast scale as bedding plants. Apart from being used as bedding plants, gazanias are also suitable for edging purposes and for growing in containers. Put them in a sunny spot in well-drained soil. You can sow them yourself. If you want flowers by July, you should start early. Sow indoors in February or March and plant out the seedlings at the end of May.

Gazania rigens is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to Southern Africa. The species occurs in South Africa and Mozambique. It is naturalised elsewhere and is widely cultivated as an ornamental garden plant.

In Australia, where it is known as Coastal Gazania the species has become naturalised on coastal dunes and roadsides in the Central Coast and Sydney regions of New South Wales as well as the coast of South East Queensland. In South Australia it is found in the southern Mount Lofty area as well as on the Eyre peninsula.