How to Grow & Care for Blanket Flower (Gaillardia)
Blanket flower, also known as gaillardia, is an easy-to-grow, short-lived wildflower with richly colored, daisy-like blooms. These fast-growing plants mature to 24 inches tall with a 20-inch spread. This garden favorite puts out large showy blossoms in shades of orange, red, yellow, white, purple, and peach throughout the warm season.
Gaillardias are such long-blooming perennials that they work equally well in borders and containers. Blanket flowers do well with other heat-loving plants that thrive in full sun. The flower can reseed and easily sprawl through your garden and can be divided after two years to reinvigorate the plant.
Blanket flowers are usually planted from nursery starts, but grow easily from seeds planted directly in the garden after the last frost date (or started indoors about four to six weeks early). If grown from seed they bloom in their second year but plants purchased from nurseries are typically ready to bloom. The plant is fully hardy in USDA Zones 3 to 10. The blanket flower is slightly toxic to humans.
Blanket Flower Care
Here are the main care requirements for growing blanket flowers.
- Plant blanket flowers in full sun.
- Put blanket flowers in poor, but well-draining soil; avoid planting this flower in clay soil.
- Water to moisten the soil, but do not oversaturate.
- Blanket flower tolerates temperature extremes.
- Avoid feeding blanket flowers fertilizer or go light on food.
