Gallardia is one of the few showy flowering plants that tolerate drought reasonably well.. It grows fast and does not require many or complicated care to flourish, so decorating the garden with it is one of the best decisions we can make, especially if we live in an area where it does not usually rain a lot.
But how do you get the odd copy without spending just money?
Get seeds
Image - Blackfoot Native Plants
Gallardias are herbaceous plants that belong to the botanical genus Gaillardia. They grow to 60cm tall, and produce daisy-shaped flowers during spring and summer. As soon as they are pollinated, the seeds begin to mature, which are more or less triangular in shape and are dark brown-black in color once they have completed their development.
If you have a copy, you just have to wait for it to bloom to get seeds. And if you don't have it, don't worry: they sell envelopes for 1 euro with an interesting quantity of seeds (more than 20) in any gardening store. If you choose to buy the envelope, I recommend that you buy it in spring, which is when they should be sown.
Sow them in seedbed
Image - Castilloarnedo.com
To have a better control of germination you should sow them in a seedbed. This can be anything: milk containers, yogurt cups, peat bars, flowerpots, seedling trays ... Choose the one that is closest to hand, and make sure it has some holes so that the excess water can come out.
Now fill them if necessary with universal growing medium mixed with 20% perlite, and place the seeds so that they are 2-3cm apart. In the case of using peat tablets, introduce only one in each one of them since this way they will be able to grow better.
Cover them with a thin layer of substrate, water them with a sprayer and place the seedbed in an area where it is directly exposed to the sun.
Decorate your garden with Gallardias
When the seedlings have reached a height of 10-15cm, you can plant them in the garden, where they will grow quickly producing flowers that same year. You can put them on the edges of the paths, near the pool, or, if you prefer, create a beautiful colored carpet by planting whose requirements are similar, such as gazanias or dimorfoteca.
Thus, you will have a garden with beautiful decorations, and all without having spent a lot of money. 🙂