Gazania

Gazania flowers close at night and may not open fully on cloudy or wet days. The plant turns toward the sun, and the heads shut in shade or under a grey sky. The foliage does not change while it happens, and that is the whole difference between a shut gazania and a sick one.

The heads open again in full sunlight. That habit is the commonest reason a healthy plant gets reported as a dying one. Gazania answers to direct light the way morning glory shuts by early afternoon and moonflower waits for dusk. Breeding has moved the habit at least once: 'Sunbather's Sunset' is sold for paprika petals that stay open into the evening, where most varieties shut tight at twilight.

Three situations look alike in a gazania bed. Check the sky and the hour before you check the plant.

Shut at night or under cloud

Flower heads closed, foliage unchanged, and the heads open again in full sunlight.

Shut for part of a sunny day

Morning or afternoon shade holds the flowers closed for that part of the day, and the plants may grow lanky in that light.

Leaves affected as well as flowers

Long wet weather or poor drainage can promote disease that kills parts of the plant, and root rot is the risk wherever the ground stays wet.

Gazania is a genus of southern African daisies in the aster family, and almost everything sold under the name is Gazania rigens, the treasure flower. Say it gay-ZAY-nee-uh. The genus holds about 16 species, though DNA work found only seven of them clearly distinct. In the wild they run from low coastal sand to alpine meadow in South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Angola.

The garden species is native to the southern African coast and has naturalized around the Mediterranean, in New Zealand and in Australia. The plant itself is small and flat, 6 to 12 inches tall and about as much across. It is perennial by life cycle, cascading, medium in growth rate and low in maintenance. Everything a gazania does happens at ankle height.

African daisy is a name that two different plants carry, and one of them is gazania. The other is Osteospermum, a genus of about 70 subshrubs, perennials and annuals from southern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Height settles it in a photograph. Osteospermum holds its daisies on upright stems 1 to 3 feet tall, while gazania keeps to a foot or less and cascades along the ground.

Heat and cold separate them after that. Osteospermum flowers well in spring and early summer, then declines fast once summer heat is steady, and it takes zone 10 to 11. Arctotis is the third name in the confusion, and it enters only by resemblance. The botanical name on the pot tag settles which plant is going home; the sign over the bench does not.

The flower is one large daisy head on a bare stem, and the dark mark at each ray base identifies it. Blooms run 3 to 4 inches across on stems up to 10 inches, with a black eye at the ray bases and an orange-brown center disc. A head carries more than 20 rays. Hybrids add yellow, orange, bronze and white to the species orange, usually with a contrasting ring where the rays meet the disk.

The leaf identifies the plant when nothing is open. Basal leaves are green above and whitish and hairy underneath, 1.5 to 4.5 inches long, either long and narrow or deeply cut like a dandelion leaf. Color and length vary with the plant in front of you, from dark green spoon-shaped rosettes to blue-green blades 4 to 8 inches long. The pale reverse is the constant, and it makes a gazania mat flicker white when wind turns the rosettes over.

Gazania is a full-sun plant, and full sun means six or more hours of direct light a day. Do not plant it in partial shade, because full day sun is what a healthy plant needs. Sun keeps the plant in condition and opens the flowers, and those two jobs fail separately. A bed shaded through the morning or the afternoon holds its flowers closed for part of the day and draws the plants lanky. A plant that never sets a bud and a plant whose buds are shut are different problems, and the hour tells them apart.

One selection takes more shade than the species. 'Colorado Gold', a cultivar of Gazania linearis, grows in full sun down to partial shade, meaning two to six hours of direct light. That tolerance belongs to that cultivar and does not transfer to the seed-grown hybrids that fill most flats.

Lean, sharply drained ground is what gazania is built for. It grows in loam, sand and shallow rocky soil and wants good drainage. It takes anything from acid below 6.0 to alkaline at 8.0, with neutral near 7.0 in the middle. Fertility is where good intentions go wrong. It grows in low-fertility rocky ground at home, so compost and supplemental fertilizer are unnecessary.

Let the soil dry out between waterings. Gazania needs less water than most annuals or perennials, and the leathery foliage is itself the clue to a high drought tolerance. Drainage is where the failure is specific. Extended wet weather or poorly drained soil can promote disease that kills portions of the plant, and gazania can rot at the root wherever the ground stays wet. With no other major pest or disease trouble, wet soil is the main way a healthy one is lost.

Gazania is a perennial by life cycle that stays one only at the warm end of the map. Zone 9 to 11 is the usual range, and inside it the plants flower year after year as long as they stay healthy. The disputed edge is zone 8, where gazania is grown as a perennial down to 8B in Florida and through zone 8 more widely. There it is worth trying and not worth counting on. Colder than that it is grown as an annual.

Below that range the hybrids come indoors before the first frost, or take a heavy mulch over the roots, and the flowers themselves can recover from mild frosts. 'Colorado Gold', a Gazania linearis selection, is hardier than other gazanias and grows in zone 5 to 9. Where plants are kept as perennials, prune in late winter or early spring, cutting the foliage back to a couple of inches above the ground in the second season if it needs it.

Start seed indoors 6 to 10 weeks before your average last frost. Sow about 1/4 inch deep and cover the seed lightly, since darkness helps trigger germination. Hold the soil between 60 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit and expect germination in 14 to 21 days. Harden the seedlings off and set them outdoors two weeks after the last frost.

Direct sowing waits for warm soil, two to four weeks after the last frost and typically mid spring. Planting months by zone are April to May in zone 8, March to May and September to October in zone 9, and February to May and November to December in zones 10 and 11. First flowers arrive about twelve weeks after sowing, which is the number that decides whether an indoor start is worth the trouble in a short season.

What separates two identical gazanias a month after planting is usually what was going on inside the nursery pot. These plants are commonly root bound by the time they are sold, and the fix is to transplant them as soon as they come home. Slide the plant out of its pot at the counter and turn the root ball over. If the roots have wrapped the wall into a solid mat, open it with your fingers on planting day and spread them outward into the hole.

Gazania is bought the way most bedding daisies are bought, in flower and in a small pot, and that is the moment the root ball is easiest to open. Set the plants 12 to 18 inches apart and they close into a solid ground cover several months later, so the gaps that look too generous on the day are what let the bed fill in. Water them in, then let the soil dry out between waterings from there on.

Check the hour and the sky before you check the plant, because a gazania with its heads shut has not stopped flowering. Past that the causes are few: too little sun, overwatering, or a plant spending itself on old blooms. Sun is first and the least negotiable, since full sun here means six or more hours of direct light a day. Water is second, and gazania thrives on little of it, while overwatering has a negative impact on blooms. Old flowers are third, and that fix is the cheapest, because removing them may increase the number of blooms a plant produces.

Feeding is the cause gardeners add themselves. Too much fertilizer can have the opposite effect and send the plant's energy toward foliage growth. What that leaves is the plant this section is named for: a wide, dark, healthy rosette with nothing standing above it. Stop feeding and wait. The last cause is the pot the plant arrived in, since a root ball that never opened keeps it on the ration of water and air it had in the can. None of the five needs a product to fix.

Yellow leaves have two opposite explanations, and what separates them is what happened just before the color changed. On lean, gritty ground that has never been fed, yellowing plants read as nitrogen deficiency, rare in gazania except on rocky or sandy soil, with soil pH possibly too high as well. Iron sulfate is the correction there, bringing the pH down and making the nitrogen available to the plant again. Test the soil before treating the pH.

The opposite case is a plant fed too well. Too much fertilizer can have the opposite effect and send the plant's energy toward foliage growth. Leaves that suddenly turn yellow, brown at the margins or fall off have had more food than they can eat, sometimes with a crusty white dusting on the soil. Remove what fertilizer can be removed and flush the rest away with water.

Wet roots are the third cause, and the one that finishes plants off. Overwatering causes root suffocation and disease, and native clay packed into a container blocks the gas exchange roots need. A failing potted plant goes back into fresh potting soil, and the watering can goes back on the shelf for a week.

Three patterns of yellow, told apart by what happened before the color changed.

Yellow on lean ground, with no recent feeding

Nitrogen deficiency is the usual reading, rare in gazania except on rocky or sandy soil, sometimes with soil pH too high as well. Iron sulfate makes the nitrogen available to the plant again.

Yellow that came on suddenly, with browned edges

Leaves that suddenly yellow, brown at the edges or fall off have had more food than they can eat, sometimes with a crusty white dusting on the soil. Remove and flush away what fertilizer you can.

Yellow with soil that stays wet

Overwatering causes root suffocation and disease, and native clay in a container blocks the gas exchange that roots need.

Gazania is invasive in named places, and the names carry the answer. It is reported invasive in Australia, New Zealand, Algeria, Egypt, Europe and California, with Gazania linearis and Gazania rigens the worst of it in Australia. There are no effective control options, chemical herbicides included, and the plant is very difficult to manage. Gazania rigens, the species behind most of what garden centers sell, has spread across five continents.

California is where the question sits for American gardeners. Major infestations run through San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, and 697 records of Gazania linearis stand in the state, in creekside vegetation and native grassland. The California Invasive Plant Council rates Gazania linearis Moderate with an Alert designation. Moderate covers substantial but generally not severe impact, and the Alert marks a limited distribution that could spread much further. No state regulation stands behind it. In McLaren Park in San Francisco the plant has reached remnant native grassland and pressed on a locally endemic species.

Gazania arrived in Australia as a garden plant in the 1950s and 1970s, naturalized along roadsides and coastlines, and has taken native grassland and farmland in South Australia, Victoria and parts of Western Australia. South Australia has declared it a weed, so growing, selling and transporting it is illegal, and only varieties claimed to be sterile are still allowed in gardens. Victoria calls it a very high risk environmental weed while its seed and plants stay on nursery and supermarket shelves. None of that is a verdict for the United States, where Florida's assessment for the genus reads not known to be invasive. Gazania raises the same question in warm, dry states that lantana does, and the answer turns on where you plant it.

Gazania spreads two ways, by seed and by growth, and which one you get depends on which gazania you bought. The fruit is a capsule that splits open to release its seeds. 'Colorado Gold', a Gazania linearis cultivar, carries self-seeding and naturalizes among its own tags. The trailing form of the garden species, Gazania rigens var. leucolaena, spreads by growth, and it is the form used as ground cover. In a bed that trait is the reason to buy the plant. On the edge of open ground it is the same trait read differently.

Seed and stem cuttings are the two routes for the garden species, and a cutting is the only way to copy one striped plant exactly. Take basal cuttings in fall, each with three to five shoots from new growth at the base. Pot them up, keep them bright indoors over winter and plant them out in spring. Where escapes matter, cutting the finished heads off takes the capsules away before they split.

Deadheading buys flowers. Removing the old blossoms may increase the number of blooms a plant produces, and regular deadheading helps bud production and lengthens the flowering period. The mechanics are easy, because the heads sit singly on bare stems above a flat rosette. Follow the stem of a finished flower down to the leaves and take the whole stem, so nothing is left standing to dry out over the foliage. On a mass planting this is the one job that comes round again, done with fingers or shears in the same pass that pulls weeds out of the mat.

The named series differ mostly in the stripe on the ray and in the color of the leaf, which the shelf sign leaves out.

'Big Kiss White Flame'

Creamy-white rays, dark pink stripe, golden disk
Tender evergreen perennial, flowers heavily in late spring

'Big Kiss Yellow Flame'

Golden-yellow rays, dark rose-red stripe
Golden disk, tender evergreen perennial

'New Day Red Stripe'

Golden-orange rays, dark red stripe
Bushy foliage, silvery underneath, heads close at night

'New Day Rose Stripe'

Creamy-white rays, dark rose stripe
Heads close at night and in cloudy weather

'Tiger Stripes'

Golden-orange rays, dark mahogany stripe
Also sold with red or hot pink stripes

'Talent' series

Grown for leaves

Silver foliage under bright flowers
On the Award of Garden Merit list

'Colorado Gold'

Hardier

Gazania linearis, grows in zone 5 to 9
Linear leaves, deep green above, silvery beneath

'Sunbather's Sunset'

Paprika petals that stay open into the evening

'Daybreak' series

Large flowers quickly from seed
Sunset colors or stripes

'Chansonette' series

Early

Flowers early, suited to short seasons

Gazania lichtensteinii

Other species

Yellow heads about 4 cm across
Annual, up to 20 cm tall
The species behind the yellow gazania search

The jobs gazania is good at defeat other bedding plants: hot banks, gravel, parking strips and the dry edge of a path. It works as ground cover and edging, and it is good for erosion control in dry areas. The trailing form, Gazania rigens var. leucolaena, does this at scale, since it can be planted en masse to cover large areas or embankments and grows fast. All of those places ask for the same pair of conditions, sun on the leaves and water that leaves quickly.

In a container the plant answers a different problem. A pot is the solution where the garden soil is heavy. It supplies the sharp drainage gazania wants anyway, and it can be carried into the open where the flowers get the direct sunlight that opens them at all. Plant it at the rim and the cascading habit does the rest.

Gazania has no entry of its own in the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant database, under either botanical name or any form of the common name. The African daisy page that does come up there is a different plant, the gerbera daisy, and the non-toxic verdict for dogs, cats and horses belongs to Gerbera jamesonii. None of it carries over to gazania. With no listing either way, the careful reading is caution. Keep dogs, cats and horses from grazing the plant, and call a veterinarian if one eats a quantity of it.

1. The Award of Garden Merit names for this genus also run to 'Aztec', 'Cookei' and the variegated form of the species, a short set to search by when the shelf label gives only a color.
2. Gazania rigens belongs in borders and in mass plantings of cottage and pollinator gardens, so a hot strip of it is doing more than holding color.
3. More names past the seed racks: 'Gold Rush' is orange-yellow with brown basal spots, 'Sundance' carries gold, bronze and white petals with a stripe, and 'Fire Emerald' has emerald petal bases.

Related Guides & Flowers

Verbena

Another sun-hungry bedding plant for hot, lean ground that keeps flowering through summer.

Sedum

The other answer to a dry bank or a gravel bed, grown for its foliage as much as its flowers.

Coreopsis

A daisy for poor sunny soil that keeps going as long as the finished heads come off.

Black-eyed Susan

The daisy that stays open all day, for gardeners who want the shape without the closing.