Keep gerbera daisies blooming is every plant owner’s concern to have these beautiful flowers bloom for as long as possible. In this article, we’ll go over what your gerbera daisy care needs are, including how much sunlight they need, how often they should be watered, what fertilizers to use, how to use good-quality, well-draining soil, how to keep pests and diseases at bay, and various other unusual but effective methods.
Keep reading to find out and understand more about essential plant care for your gerbera daisy.
Contents
- How To Keep Gerbera Daisies Blooming in The Right Ways?
- – Remove the Spent Flowers
- – Fertilize Accordingly
- – Water Properly
- – Provide Sufficient Light
- – Use Well Draining Soil
- – Re-pot If Needed
- – Always Check for Pests and Diseases
- – Keep The Leaves Dry
- – Avoid High Temperatures
- – Remove Old Leaves
- – Expect Breaks from Flowering
- – Plant in Different Batches
- – Cut Off Fresh New Flowers
- Conclusion
How To Keep Gerbera Daisies Blooming in The Right Ways?
To keep gerbera daisies blooming in the right ways, you must first remove the spent flowers, and try to fertilize accordingly. Then, make sure that you are watering it properly, and provide sufficient sunlight, place well-draining soil, repot when needed, check for pests, avoid high temperatures, and prune the flower.
– Remove the Spent Flowers
Simply removing the wasted flowers by deadheading or trimming them off will ensure that your gerbera daisies will continue to bloom. As soon as the wasted blooms start to lose their color, you can remove them, so that they will have the energy to grow further.
Doing this encourages the plant to produce new flowers rather than waste its energy trying to save the old ones. In addition, the plant will be able to redirect its energy from pollination or seed production.
– Fertilize Accordingly
To help keep your gerbera daisies continue blooming, it is essential that there are sufficient minerals in the soil for them to generate flowers. Phosphorus, in particular, should make up a large portion of fertilizers as it is necessary for flowering. For this reason, your plant needs to be fertilized every two weeks, and when the weather starts to warm up, which is during spring, you must then do so.
It is ideal to use liquid fertilizer for the best results, and every two weeks or so, give your plant a regular feeding of a balanced liquid fertilizer that has been diluted to half-strength. Feed the plant beginning in the spring and continuing through the early to mid-fall. You may also choose a 15-3-20 or a 17-5-17 mix as an alternative.
However, when the flowering period slows in the summer, you must also slow down on fertilizing and no give it excessively. You can continue fertilizing every two weeks after the summer’s heat has passed. When you do this, your daisies will have larger and fuller blooms.
Be careful not to overfeed your plants because it can result in more foliage than blooms. Remember that you only need to fertilize to make sure that the soil will not be depleted of nutrients, or else it wouldn’t bloom right.
– Water Properly
Like many flowering plants, gerbera daisy water requirements and preferences are watered only after the soil has completely dried up. Now, the frequency and amount of water should be based on something other than a schedule but on the actual status of your plant. It can depend on the heat and general condition of the environment where your plant is.
If there is too much water, the flowers may droop, which is why you must consider that on average, these plants need around an inch of water a week. Proper watering will promote more frequent blossoming for your plant.
– Provide Sufficient Light
Gerbera daisies thrive when they are exposed to direct sunlight for a few hours, especially under the morning sun, and then spend most of the day relaxing in the semi-shade. Given that light is the most crucial element for the gerbera to blossom, placing the plant where it receives as much sunshine as possible will be a great idea. For this, you can opt to place it around a sunny window with a south or west orientation is ideal for indoor growth.
– Use Well Draining Soil
Grow gerbera daisies in good-quality soil as the soil provides the majority of the nutrients that they need. It is important that you use good-quality soil. The flowers rely on the nutrients they can acquire from the soil, unlike certain plants that may be able to absorb nutrients via their leaves.
Before you plant them, make sure that the soil you are going to use is rich and drains well. You can use garden soil, but modifying it with lots of compost and manure is significant. You may also add sand to make sure it has proper drainage. If not, it will be easier for the blooms to draw adequate nutrients from the waterlogged soil, and as you do so, this will result in fewer flowers.
– Re-pot If Needed
If you grow your gerbera daisy in pots, consider repotting them to prevent the plant from getting root-bound and to make sure the soil is always rich in nutrients and well-draining. Make sure to use fresh soil and fertilizer when you repot them, and that the new pot is not contaminated. Use a pot that is one size larger to make sure to give enough room to the growing plant.
– Always Check for Pests and Diseases
Although it may seem that it will not help keep the gerbera daisies blooming, ensuring that your plant’s health is in tip-top shape will help. As a result, your plant can focus on producing more flowers rather than surviving an attack. Prevention and early treatment are the keys to dealing with diseases and pests. Regularly checking your plants will help so that you can act as early as possible.
Stem rot, powdery mildew, Botrytis blight, bacterial leaf spot and blight, and Verticillium wilt are some of the diseases that can affect this particular plant. To prevent these diseases, avoid overwatering, keep the leaves dry, and ensure your plant receives enough sunlight, you must try to give it the right amount of water, so that the bottom wouldn’t have stable water that would become fungi.
Moreover, for pests, you should watch out for aphids, spider mites, leafminers, thrips, and whiteflies. They often hide in the stems and leaves of plants; fortunately, they are easily eliminated by using insecticides.
– Keep The Leaves Dry
The existing flowers of the daisies may droop, and new blooms may appear less often than usual when the foliage is damp. Gerbera daisy plants don’t want their foliage to be wet, so foliar sprays and misting do not apply to them. In fact, doing so may harm their blooms and foliage, so keep this in mind. The trick is to water at the base of the plant instead of water from top to bottom, thus avoiding wetting the leaves and flowers.
– Avoid High Temperatures
Gerbera daisies are also affected by excessive heat. While they love sunlight, they cannot tolerate prolonged exposure, especially to the afternoon sun, and when the sun becomes too warm and the heat surrounds the plant, this damages the blooms.
The flowering will significantly slow down when the summertime temperatures set in. This is because this plant prefers temperatures around 70 degrees Fahrenheit or below. In order to promote continuous flowering, place your beautiful daisy plant in shadier parts of your garden, and avoid prolonged exposure to bright, direct sunlight.
– Remove Old Leaves
Removing and cutting off the old and dying leaves can work wonders in keeping the daisy plant in continuous bloom. This is because the quantity of energy the plant receives from the sun increases when you remove dead and dying leaves. Getting rid of the withering leaves also helps the plant to redirect and use its energy on new flowers rather than sustain the old and dying sections of the plant.
– Expect Breaks from Flowering
After a period of active flowering, it is normal for your gerbera daisies to pause. This is because the plant is recovering and preparing for another flowering season. In this case, you must consider how this plant blooms throughout the spring, summer, and fall seasons. However, when the temperature gets colder than 40 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer than 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the blooming may also pause for a while.
Similar to this, your plant may face a slowdown or cessation in flowering if it receives enough water, fertilizer, and pruning, or if it needs more sunlight or has poorly draining soil. Which is why if you are deadheading will also prevent your plant from blooming right away. It could not begin flowering again for days or even weeks.
– Plant in Different Batches
Planting gerbera in different batches is a fun way to keep your plant flowering for a long time. You can do this by planting the seeds in weekly batches so that the plants will grow and develop at different times. Another important aspect is by propagating gerbera daisies to multiply them.
Some plants will grow until early to mid-summer before they bloom, whereas others will bloom in mid-to-late spring. Simply deadhead the first set of blooms on each plant group if you want to enjoy their beauty even longer.
– Cut Off Fresh New Flowers
A very unusual yet effective trick is to cut off the fresh flowers as soon as you see them bloom. When you do this, it will encourage the plant to produce more. No need to worry because you can always utilize the freshly cut flowers of Gerbera daisy indoor by putting them in a vase to decorate your home.
In short, with proper care and ideal environmental conditions, gerbera daisies can last two to three years. Once they bloom, they continue to do so for several weeks, and they will always look pristine.
Conclusion
Keeping gerbera daisies flowering is easy now that you have read this article, so let us recap and summarize all the key elements of what we have discussed:
- Removing spent flowers and dying leaves is one of the best methods for keeping your gerbera daisies flowering, as it will enable the plant to focus its energy on producing additional blooms rather than keeping the dying leaves alive.
- Gerbera daisies will continue blooming as long as their essential needs are adequately met, including sufficient light, the right amount of fertilizer, proper watering, and well-draining soil.
- Regularly checking for pests and diseases will also help, as you can provide treatment as early as possible to keep the plant healthy and blooming.
- Avoiding high temperatures, keeping the leaves and flowers dry, and repotting when needed can all help keep your gerbera daisies in continuous bloom.
- Gerbera daisies often take breaks in flowering, especially if the temperature is above 70 degrees Fahrenheit and after deadheading, so continue to provide proper care during this period.
With all the information that you have gathered, you are now more equipped to apply daisy care confidently. Remember to cultivate them in ideal growing conditions continuously, and you will have no problem maintaining the blooming of your gerbera daisies for as long as you want.
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