Hardiness zones
Sunset All zones
USDA All zones
Landscape Use: Winter annual in Phoenix, front yard wild flower gardens, desert landscape borders, desert restoration, annual ground cover over a large area for best effect
Form & Character: Uninhibited, free flowering, boisterous
Growth Habit: Branched annual to 4 to12" tall
Foliage/texture: Dentate medium green to gray green foliage, narrow to 2" long green stems, medium fine texture
Flowers & fruits: Ray flower, multi colored from white to orange to purple, will readily reseed
Seasonal color: Flowers in February to April
Temperature: Temperature parameterizes the seasonal use of African daisy in profound ways. On balance, it thrives in cooler weather with temperatures consistently below 80oF and is a complete landscape wimp if temperatures exceed 90oF.
Light: Full sun
Soil: Tolerant, but best in well-drained soil
Watering: Takes some aridity and in fact less water promotes short and stiffly erect plants whereas copious water and high fertility promotes a less attractive leggy and sprawling cover. Be sure to let soil dry at the height of flowering and into early summer to insure maximum reseeding. It's also imperative to keep reseeded soils dry through the summer to preserve seed in a dormant and uninfectred state for the following fall.
Pruning: None
Propagation: Seed
Disease and pests: None
Additional comments: Sow African daisy seed in late summer to early fall in Phoenix for that wonderful carpet of landscape color the following February and March. After flowering, African daisy will reseed (if you are patient and let the plants go to seed) and colonize large areas for spectacular, dependable displays year after year with only a small amount of winter rainfall. African daisy can naturalize in the winter rainfall areas of the southwestern United States, especially coastal California. The cultivar 'Salmon Queen' has large flowers with pastel shades of salmon and apricot. The genus name Dimorpotheca is derived from Greek dis (twice), morphe (shape) and theka (a fruit), referring to the different kinds of seeds produced by the ray and the disc flowers.
