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Gaillardia pulchella
Also called Indian Blanket Flower, Indian Blanket, Annual Gaillardia, Fire Wheel, Firewheel Blanketflower, Rose Ring Blanket Flower, Rose Ring Blanketflower
Firewheel is a short-lived annual or perennial daisy-family wildflower from the southern US and northern Mexico, grown for its red, orange and yellow pinwheel flowers. It needs full sun, sandy well-drained soil and little water.
Gaillardia pulchella (firewheel, Indian blanket, Indian blanketflower, or sundance) is a North American species of short-lived perennial or annual flowering plants in the sunflower family.
G. pulchella is a hardy plant, not picky about soil, though sandy and well-drained are best. It has a high drought tolerance and does best with a dry, hot climate in full sun. Its vibrantly colored flowers can be seen carpeting fields and the sides of highways for miles in the summer to late fall. Favored by honeybees, it produces a dark reddish amber buttery tasting honey. In the garden, the flowers can be deadheaded to promote further blooming. It self-seeds freely.
It is native to northern Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Sonora, Tamaulipas) and the southern and central United States from Arizona east to Florida and the Carolinas and north as far as Nebraska. It is also naturalized in scattered locations in other parts of the U.S. as well as in Québec, Ontario, China, South Africa, and parts of Central and South America. The plant generally lives in the sandy plains and deserts of the south of the North American continent. It is common along the roads and prefers sandy soils. It can also grow on vacant lots in urban areas, but generally below 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) above sea level.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gaillardia pulchella by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
