Gaillardia Dazzler seeds - Great Blanket Flower

The perennial Blanket Flower 'Dazzler' is a selection of Gaillardia x grandiflora with delicately bicoloured flowers. It blooms, in summer and beyond, with red-orange flowers tipped with yellow at the petal ends, with a red and yellow centre. Characterised by its daisy-like flowers, this perennial is perfect for cut flower bouquets. Despite a relatively short lifespan, it stands out for its undemanding nature, hardiness, and drought resistance. It thrives in rocky or sandy, dry soils, whether on paving, in a scree garden, on a rockery, or even in a large pot on a sunny terrace.

Gaillardia x grandiflora is a horticultural hybrid resulting from the cross-breeding of Gaillardia aristata, a perennial native to the central Great Plains of North America, and Gaillardia pulchella, an almost annual plant, native to northern Mexico and the southern and central United States. Belonging, like its two parents and like the sunflower, to the large family of Asteraceae, this hybrid has inherited from its first parent a good hardiness and increased longevity, and from the second its extraordinary floriferous nature, rapid growth, and undemanding nature.

The 'Dazzler' variety forms a clump of 60 cm in height by 40 cm in spread, adorned with large flower head measuring 6 to 8 cm in diameter from summer to autumn, attracting pollinating insects. The pure yellow petals frame a brown centre. The foliage is mainly basal and features narrow, slightly lobed or deeply incised leaves, with a grey-green colour and a slightly fuzzy texture. Even towards the end of the flowering period, the flowers of this variety retain a distinctive appeal, somewhat reminiscent of the beauty of echinaceas.

The Blanket Flower thrives in light, well-drained soils, while also tolerating drought and heat, making it an ideal plant for sunny locations. It tends to self-seed abundantly, which is why it is advisable to regularly remove faded flowers to encourage new blooming and prevent it from spreading too much. Although sometimes considered old-fashioned, blanket flowers, like large-flowered coreopsis and gauras, are among the most floriferous. Their main weakness remains their sensitivity to ambient humidity, even in well-drained soils. In warm soils of average quality, the blanket flower pairs beautifully with lavenders, rosemary, cotton lavenders, rockroses, Geranium sanguineum, wormwoods, and grasses like Stipas, all equally resistant and floriferous. In a meadow, pair them with oxeye daisies or scabious for a rural scene.