I've had 'Fanfare' for a number of years here in zone 6A (though we're getting more like 7 the last few years).

They are very long lived. I have some that are five years old. Even if not, they are easily started from seeds and usually bloom the first year. They do like good drainage! I can't believe someone told you they were annuals! I know people in your zone that grow them with no problem.

I grew gaillardia a couple years back, in the hopes that it was perennial (I thought it was perennial). It did well the first year but never came back. It was Fanfare that I grew. I had the same problem with coreopsis. Maybe they're not so hardy in zone 5 (odd since some places advertise it & coreopsis as being hardy in zone 3).

I grow echinacea, daisies & rudbeckia now. I never have a problem with them coming back and spreading (which was the idea).

My experience with the "designer" gaillardia is that they revert to the common bicolor/size/shape after a season or two of cross-pollination.

The most reliable (in my zone 7b garden) for color, shape and size is gaillardia 'Burgundy'. It is my favorite and I've not had it revert. It self-sows reliably. It is supposed to be rated for zones 3-9. The color is great with other flowers that are yellow, white and blue flowers.

Still waiting to see bloom colors among all the gaillardia foliage -- that looks the same:

The next most reliable has been 'Yellow Queen' but after 4 years, I think mine may now be gone.

'Tokajer' was splendid for 3 years, but I don't think it's still around. Waiting.

'Tizzy' was my favorite for the fluted petal shape, but the plants reverted after 2-3 years.

A rare and unique native gaillardia (from Texas) that grows extremely well for me is Gaillardia aestivalis var. winkleri 'Grape Sensation' but it is for Zones 7-9.

I've tried so many and wrote a blog post about it (in 2010) with photos and zone info.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: Pick your favorite color of blanket flower

Some years ago Jelitto marketed a new seed strain of gailardia, which, unlike all the others, was supposed to be perennial. Well, IT IS NOT. They can be periennial until they bloom, and then disappear(unless they are still to come, which I doubt. Practically everything is up by now.)

When we first moved into this house, the bed behind the house had some gaillardia in it. Probably Goblin. I hated the color, and started trying to get rid of it. For more than five years, I dug gaillardia and gave it away, but it kept coming back. I think it finally disappeared for good after being shaded out by the Japanese anemones.

If you want to keep it going, it has to be divided. Without being touched, it seems to last about three years. That's about how often the same people would ask me for starts. If you dig and divide it every other year, it seems to last a very long time. But who wants to do all that work.

I bet it blooms longer than Japanese Anemones too.

Gaillardia is not at all reliable for me. Coreopsis comes back only half the time.

These are the daisies that are reliable for me:

-Echinacea
-Rudbeckia
-Shasta daisy 'Becky'
-Aster 'Monch'
-Stokes asters (different types; occasionally lose one)

Have Gaillardia coming back for year 4 now and spreading. The key is lots of sun, great drainage and allow it to seed. Atleast that worked so far, lets see year 5.

Three years and Tokajer and Arizona Sun are going strong.

I had seedling that I planted from Oranges and Lemons seeds. They don't come true - it looked like Fanfare and was a great bloomer. This would have been it's third year, and it's gone now.

Oranges and Lemons is definitely not perennial here. I've tried it, and friends tried it, and no one has had success getting it to return. Another one that didn't come back for me is Arizona Red Shades.

I just bought a new one called Arizona Apricot and we'll see how long it lasts.

Linda

I've found that it has lasted longer if I've amended the soil with coarse sand/grit down to a depth/width of about a foot. I get the sand at Home Depot or Lowes (Builder's Sand/Coarse Sand). It's usually darker in color than what they sell as Play Sand. For grit, I usually buy what they call Small Marble Chips. Both are cheap and it takes a little effort to dig/mix it all in, but what a difference it has made. I plant the Gaillardia a little bit higher than usual and mulch with dark red stones. Works for me. Best of luck to you!

Burgundy has been in my garden for almost 20 years. I call that reliable.

Hostaholic, LOL. My grandmother had marigolds for 50 years. But not a single one of them became a perennial.

The term 'great drainage' was invented to give people bad conscience and explain ALL POSSIBLE LOSSES. I shy away when I sense somebody wants to mention it. 99 % of all plants on this planet need good drainage, even those that grow on meadows and other moist places. It should be written on the front page of all gardening books as the subtitle, followed by a remark 'unless stated otherwise'. Great drainage is not a BIG NEW DISCOVERY. I recall my conversation with the lady who sold me the new Echinaceas (all died). Her comment to my complaint was ' they need an excellent drainage'. As if I was born yesterday or just landed from the Moon. The new Echinaceas were growing together with the old Echinaceas(all survived), Chrysanthemums(all survived), and even rare Turkish Fritillarias(all survived). All these mentioned plants need excellent drainage. And they survived. You cannot make drainage better than it is doable. Even on pure gravel there will be some standing water to start with when it is thawing. I planted gaillardias several times in many different places. They survive the first winter with flying colours, bloom and then die- with the same drainage.

There are plants (and I strongly suspect the new echinacheas are among them) that don't need great drainage. They need drought. It is going to require a heroic effort to grow them in a place that gets more than say 30 inches a year of natural rainfall. Then there are the plants like lavender that like water, don't need anything special for drainage, but don't like the acidic soil that is common in the wetter parts of North America. And this doesn't even get into the plants that are more annuals than perennials like some of the coreopsises. (coreopsii?)

linlily wrote:

I just bought a new one called Arizona Apricot and we'll see how long it lasts.

I planted 15 of these new gaillardia in the past couple of weeks. They 'better' be truly perennial!

Arizona Apricot is a seed variety. You can get 30 seeds for about 3 dollars! They bloom the first year too. Swallowtail Garden Seeds is a good source. I also suggest you check out 'Amber Wheels.'

It's interesting seeing someone who talks about how great Delphiniums are talk negatively about one of the toughest, drought tolerant perennials available! If you want these to grow, simply dig a nice hole to put them in and add a good amount of sand and mix it up. Don't water them except the first time you plant them. They will grow like crazy. Even if they aren't perennial in your Zone or conditions, as I said before, the seeds are only 3 dollars and germination on these is almost 100 percent.

Hi echinaceamaniac. Telling the truth is not synonymous with talking negatively. What would you expect me to do? Praise them because they die young? I know they are cheap and germination is good. But it is not the same as stating they are long-lived(which is the title of the topic). Amber Wheels is the very seed strain I was growing. According to my experience it is not any better than any other seed strain.

I know these grow well in the United States Zone 7. There has to be something different about the winter in your country. I have them return each year almost 100% of the time. Does it snow there much or rain a lot in winter? It must be cooler if Delphiniums grow there because in my Zone 7 the Delphiniums are now sold as annuals because they die when our 100 degree summers arrive.

My soil has poor drainage. Yet I grow gaillardia very successfully -- under the eaves of the house! Yes, it stays very dry there and gets a ton of sun -- the gaillardia loves it and re-seeds itself, so every year I have more, going on 12 years now. I love this plant for this area but could never grow it elsewhere.

I have one called 'Mesa Yellow' that I grew from seeds 3 years ago. It has had so many blooms this year. It started blooming in March! That's another good one that people should check into. It's a hybrid, but seeds are only about 4 dollars for 20 seeds. They germinated in less than a week.

Thanks echinaceamaniac for the reminder re the use of seeds. I love gardening but I have never been one to start plants from seed (except for 4 O'Clocks and nasturtium).

My excuse is with summer relatively short in Z5 I am willing to pay extra to give my plants a heard start. And with my gardens being small in area I dont need tons of plants.

And I learned the other day that Achillea/Yarrow are also relatively short lived...about 3 years? I love the way these plants flower and so I am disappointed that I will have to start again with them in a few years.

Have you noticed this also?

We have some Yarrow growing that my Grandmother gave us over 25 years ago. I don't think they are short lived at all. They just need being divided when they get crowded which makes them very economical to me. I used to grab a stalk and rip it out with a few roots. They are literally that easy to propagate.

echinaceamaniac, 100 degrees is a temperature of boiling water here, so I had to convert it. It is 37,7 degrees Celsius. I have never experienced that much(I'm already in agony at 25 degrees Celsius). Our winters can be very wet, but there can be also periods of -15 degrees without snow cover.

The Zones are so unreliable. There needs to be better information about heat and humidity tolerance. I have bought plants that shouldn't have been sold here.

My gaillardia arizona sun is blooming already! in May!

My gaillardia are hit by the sprinklers all week long. They survive and spread because they are in terrible gritty soil with hot afternoon sun at the base of some arborvitae that probably suck any remaining water out of the soil.

Quote: 'The Zones are so unreliable'. I agree. I'm in the coldest part of Denmark('warm' part of zone 7), but the biggest part of the country is zone 8. It is rather rare that the winter temperature goes down below - 20 degrees Centigrade. Nevertheless, majority of the plants marked as hardy in US zone 6 and 7 are practically ungrowable here and regarded as unreliable in best case scenario. Among others: Stokesia, Lobelia cardinalis and its hybrids, my Spigelia marilandica died, Asclepias tuberosa, Salvia azurea and others.

Wow. That is terrible. Asclepias tuberosa is so tough too.

UPDATE:

My "Arizona Apricot" provides wonderful yellow blooms all summer and beyond. Off hand I think it might be the 'best' perennial I have with respect to continuous bloom (some of our roses are maybe 2nd). One especially appreciates such summer like colour now that it is well into October. (Here is one as of a couple of days ago).

But more than half of these "Apricot" that were planted in 2012 failed to survive our winter. And those that did make it took so long to grow large enough to bloom in 2013. I have no problem buying large ones each spring i.e. treating it as an annual to get that continuous color in our garden.

This post was edited by rouge21 on Sun, Oct 13, 13 at 11:35

Thanks for the update. As I read this thread I was wondering how the ones you planted ended up doing for you. How nice to see the info at the end.

Did you dead head much? Looks as though you didn't from the pucture. We're they all in similar growing conditions (the survivors vs the non survivors)?

Did you plant new ones this spring as well?

I have a couple bicolor ones, planted late this spring. They did flower for a long time but never grew very large.

I haven't grown Gaillardia for years. Imagine my surprise to see it again in my garden this Spring. I wonder if seeds were dormant in the ground all this time (I know my next door neighbours do not have it)? Variety was "Goblin".

I have had Az Apricot grown from seed for two years. First year it was smaller and had blooms, second year is is very broad and short and very floriferous. It also reseeded and there are various tall hungry poor relatives now surrounding the original plants. So it isn't going to come back the same if it reseeds. I had Az Sun for many years at my old house in the xeri bed, which had more clayey soil. It lasted about three or four years at best, but reseeded. It was a taller plant originally, I think if I remember correctly, so the seedlings were more like the original plant. I never divided it, but would move seedlings around when they appeared to have it in the spots I wanted it. Az Apricot is a very pretty color, but I can't treat it the same way as the seedlings are so much bigger and rangier.

'trove', I think it was 5 of the AA that I replaced this past spring. I was able to get healthy large ones from the nursery and they were just fine i.e. came to flower quickly and profusely for the whole season. I guess what I am trying to say is that treating these AA as annuals is no big deal as the yearly replacements develop very quickly.

If I remembered I would dead head but by the time September came they were on there own.

This post was edited by rouge21 on Mon, Oct 14, 13 at 16:51

Below (August 28, 2011): somewhat neglected part of garden I planted and maintained over a dozen years.

The older varieties of mainly Coreopsis ('Early Sunrise', 'Sunray' and 'Sterntaler'), but also Gaillardia 'Kobold' (Goblin), reseeded themselves at the front of the bed over ten years.

Don't think the newer varieties reseed themselves like that.
e.g.

Below (June 30, 2013): Gaillardia 'Gallo Bright Red', planted in own garden this June.

Don't see why these Gallo series blanket flowers have valid cultivar names (viz. RHS: Plant Finders), since "Gallo" is trademarked and no commercial interest is supposed to own a cultivar name (or part of one?).

I saw these Gaillardia growing in sand at the beach this summer.

Nice picture 'ech'.

I agree that they do fine in lean soil but the problem I have experienced is getting them to return in my zone 4 climate.

I'd grow these even if they were annuals here. I always buy seeds and plant the new seed strains anyways. I have heard that Arizona 'Apricot' is hardy to Zone 2.

I have heard that Arizona 'Apricot' is hardy to Zone 2.

I think I had 4 or 5 of my 10 return. Drainage is an issue in the late winter early spring in the location they are located.

I'd grow these even if they were annuals here.

And that is how I feel and did for AA this past spring.

(However we are not ones to grow plants from seeds (oh wait we do that for nastertiums and 4 o'clocks))

I love growing them from seeds. I have better luck with the plants I grow myself from seeds. You have complete control over their potting soil, etc. The ones you buy that are already blooming usually are in that bark mix that I hate. However, I will buy some that aren't available from seeds like 'Fanfare' if I really want one. Gaillardia are probably one of the easiest plants to grow from seeds to me. I can't think of another perennial that is so easy to manage.

I always like gaillardia, but always heard it was short lived. The weather here is so up and down. Its been a rainy spring, and I'm afraid to plant it with this kind of weather. There is one spot in my backyard I could put one, but its in part shade. So, I'm not sure if they could take a little shade.

The more I garden the more I become an adherent of the "right plant, right place" theory. I love my gaillardia, but no way could I grow them anywhere else but under my house's roof where it's hot, dry, and sunny. You get tired of fighting to keep things alive in places they don't like -- or at least I do. So, after a while I just see what is thriving in any given location and plant more of that. As I said above, my gaillardia has been going strong for 13 years now with NO interference from me.

I agree with jayco, find out where it's happy (as cheaply as possible), then add as needed.

I just grow the annual kinds like that one above growing in beach sand. They are just getting ready to open right now, they have naturalized but not invasively so, They come up in fall, winter over, are very early bloom & they keep it up consistently until fall. It doesn't get easier, cheaper or more reliable than that. Sometimes I get solid yellow but others are various amounts of yellow on red.

I should add, I grow them dry, mean & lean, not moist, rich or pampered.

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Sun, Apr 20, 14 at 21:57