Gaillardia 'Oranges and Lemons' PP#17,092

Plant Patent #17,092. "Oranges and lemons / Say the bells of St. Clement's" goes the old nursery rhyme, and you'll be ready to ring a hearty tribute to this super long-blooming, floriferous, easy-to-grow Blanket Flower before the very first season is over. All Gaillardias offer up a lot of blooms, but 'Oranges & Lemons' is on an entirely new scale of production, with a single plant boasting as many as 75 flowers open AT A SINGLE TIME! Multiply that by the early-summer-through-mid-fall bloomtime, and you'll see that you're going to enjoy hundreds upon hundreds of flowers every year from this little powerhouse.

Each daisy is about 2 inches wide, with bright tangerine petals tipped in yellow and surrounding a saucy orange-and-yellow central cone.

This plant is just 18 inches high and 20 inches wide, so it's all the more surprising that it should be such a powerhouse for flowers. Yet from the first breath of summer until long into fall, 'Oranges and Lemons' regales you with blooms. It's also a rough-and-ready garden performer, withstanding heat, humidity, poor soil, and even drought once established in your garden.

'Oranges and Lemons' is the perennial to plant in your sun-soaked garden trouble spots ? along the baking asphalt driveway, in that dry area around the mailbox, or in the tough, almost unbroken soil of a new bed or border. It thrives on challenges like these, and you'll be amazed at its performance even when given very little attention.

Space plants about 18 inches apart. Zones 3-10.