Gazania is not one of the demanding plants. However, the right care measures are important and necessary for the plant to develop magnificently.
Gazania is also known as Midday Gold. After all, it's a radiant sun-worshiper whose yellow flowers can make for a wonderful sight on the balcony or in your own garden.
So that the plant can thrive perfectly, especially on the balcony or on the patio at home, appropriate care is a must. We will now show what all hobby gardeners should definitely pay attention to.
How much does the Gazanie have to be watered?
Although the little sun worshipers clearly prefer a location with blazing sunshine, the water requirement of this balcony plant can be classified as moderate. The Mittagsgold does not appreciate too much moisture at all. It is better to keep the soil around the gazania moderately moist, but not too wet.
In addition to careful watering, a substrate that is as permeable as possible, combined with the appropriate drainage, is important. Because even if the Gazanie was watered once too much, this does not have to degenerate into such a big problem. However, increased watering only makes sense during unusually hot periods.
By feeling the substrate underneath the Gazania, you can easily check if it is indeed time to water the plant again. As a general rule, Gazanie balcony plants should be watered more frequently than if the midday gold was planted in an outdoor garden bed.
Gazania appreciates generous fertilizer applications
Generous fertilizing, on the other hand, is excellent for the midday gold. For this purpose, it is best to use a liquid fertilizer from specialist shops. This can easily be added to the irrigation water. Fertilizer applications at intervals of about two weeks are sufficient. In addition, a liquid fertilizer comes with a decisive advantage. Since it supplies the plant with nutrients via the irrigation water, this fertilizer is equally good at all components of the plant in the root areareach.
Be sure to remove wilted flowers and leaves
In order for the Gazania to shine in all its glory, the withered flowers must be removed at regular intervals. These can easily be picked up by hand. However, the cleaning of the balcony plant does not only have purely visual reasons. Because only when the withered inflorescences have been carefully removed does the gazania stimulate it to bloom again, as most balcony owners probably wish for.
The Gazania rarely wilts its leaves. However, wilted leaves can indicate an infestation with pests. Therefore, the now unsightly leaves of the plant must also be removed promptly. Then there is still a chance that the infestation will not spread to the rest of the midday gold, but can be stopped in time.
What is the best way to overwinter Gazania?
In order to ensure that the perennial balcony plant blooms as lavishly as possible in the coming year, targeted measures to overwinter the plant are essential. Ideally, the plant should be dug up so that the midday gold does not see itself exposed to harmful frost in the first place. It can then be placed in a pot to carefully overwinter the crop elsewhere.
The new location of the plant should of course have appropriate frost protection, otherwise all the effort would be in vain. After all, the Gazania originally comes from South Africa and is not used to such cold climatic conditions in their homeland. For this reason, even a single occurrence of night frost will lead to the death of this plant species. These tips should also be heeded when wintering the midday gold:
- the place for overwintering the plant should be frost-free, but still cool
- choose a bright spot for wintering
- ensure a minimal water supply during the winter
- Too much water during wintertime can lead to mold growth on Gazania (this could mean plant death)
- Do not plant the Gazania outdoors again until the last frost is finally over
If you don't want to do this work, simply rip out the Gazania in autumn. It can then be wonderfully composted and thus at least used as a garden fertilizer. However, the midday gold will no longer bloom next spring, so that the plant will be replanted or sown in the coming year insteadgot to. Since this is the case, Gazania is usually sold as an annual plant in local specialist shops anyway.
Gazania pruning after successful overwintering
After the successful hibernation, cutting back a perennial Gazania can make sense. This is mainly due to the fact that the plant not only increases in height over time, but also in width. With an annual plant, however, pruning is usually not necessary.
Possible pest and disease infestation
In general, the Gazania is considered to be quite hardy. This is especially true when the correct planting conditions prevail and the midday gold is well cared for. In this case, it is only snails that like to tamper with this plant. They particularly target the young Gazania foliage, which is not good for the plant at all. Eventually the midday gold will be bare, after which the plant will most likely die.
If the gazania has been planted in a bed, the spreading of slug pellets is an expressly recommended preventive measure. In buckets and pots, on the other hand, a snail infestation is more of a rarity. Therefore, this measure is only necessary if snails are actually found in the vicinity of the Gazania.