GERBERA DAISIES
When I was a young, foolish gardener, I was a tremendous plant snob. I looked down my nose at petunias, dahlias, gladiolas, hybrid tea roses and gerbera daisies. They were common plants, in my lofty opinion, pretty enough if you weren’t too choosey, but certainly not anything that I would want in my house or garden.
But being a plant snob blinds you to a bumper crop of beauty, and nobody can afford to ignore beautiful things. When I figured that out, I came down off my high horse and allowed myself to see the value in those plants and many more. Now I grow lovely dahlias, gladiolas and even the occasional hybrid tea rose in my garden. The petunia universe has expanded so much that I would be very surprised if some petunia varieties didn’t make it into my home landscape before very long.
This long winter has made me take a fresh look at the much-loved gerbera daisy. Everyone has seen them in cut flower arrangements and, in fact, they are the fifth most popular cut flower in the world. They look like bright, candy-colored sunflowers, with a daisy-like form that attests to the gerbera’s membership in the large daisy or Asteraceae family. The plants are tender annuals and they are grown by the millions in greenhouses for use by florists around the globe. They look cheerful, last a long time in a vase and must be relatively cheap to produce in enormous quantities. If gerberas have a single fault, it is the tendency of the stems to flop under the weight of the big flowerheads. Florists and merchandisers usually remedy this by placing the tops of the stems in clear plastic tubes that provide invisible support when the blooms are used in arrangements.
I have gerberas, adorned with lots of euonymus from my garden, in three arrangements in my house right now. The gerberas are golden yellow, making them even more sunflower-like. They are on their eleventh day in the house and all but one of them looks as fresh as the day I brought them home. Every time I look at them, I feel sunny and bright and wonder why I didn’t appreciate them much, much sooner.
How did gerberas get to every grocery store, garden center, nursery and florist in the world? The story involves a South African plant, a Scottish plant hunter, a German naturalist and a supporting cast of hybridizers. If you added a secret society, a femme fatale and Tom Hanks, you would have a Dan Brown thriller.
The eighteenth century German naturalist was Traugott Gerber, a friend of Carolus Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy. Linnaeus had a habit of naming things after his friends, which is exactly what he did with Gerber and the gerbera daisy. The South African plant is Gerbera Jamesonii. Its region of origin is commemorated in its common names, “Transvaal daisy” and “Barberton daisy.” G. Jamesonii was discovered by Scottish plant collector Robert Jameson in the mid 1800’s. The cast of hybridizers took the lovely G. Jamesonii and crossed it with other species to produce the modern gerbera daisy, known to its scientific friends as Gerbera hybrida.
Gerberas may be common in flower arrangements, but they are not terribly common in home gardens. Only one major American plant catalog, Park Seeds, sells young gerbera plants and only in mixed-color assortments. It is also possible to buy potted specimens in various merchandisers’ establishments and plant them in the garden in temperate weather. Under the right conditions, they will bloom nicely, but will, of course, die back when frost hits.
You can start the colorful daisies from seed as well. Burpees carries one selection, a mixed-color assortment called “California Mix.” Park sells two: “Rainbow Mix” and “Crush Mix.” If you want only a single color, your best bet is either to separate the colors you receive in the mixed assortment of young plants and plant them in different places or sow seeds and cull out all but the plants in your color of choice. Collect the seeds from those plants at the end of the growing season and follow the same procedure for several years. Eventually the majority of your seed-grown plants will be those with your favorite flower color.
Now that I have come to appreciate gerberas, I may just order some young plants. My cottage-type garden can always use more color. Order your plants or seeds from Park Seed Company, 1 Parkton Avenue, Greenwood, SC 29647, (800)-213-0076; www.parkseed.com. Free catalog. Seeds are also available from W. Atlee Burpee & Co.
300 Park Avenue, Warminster, PA 18974, (800)-888-1447; www.burpee.com. Free catalog.