Gerbera Garvinea - An outstanding perennial for Waikato gardens

Plant breeders around the world are now producing some amazing new plant varieties that are going to be readily accepted by gardeners because they have many great characteristics - disease resistance, continuous flowering for most of the year and easy care with little maintenance. Basically these are the factors that I believe all gardeners want from plants in the modern garden of today.

GERBERA GARVINEA SERIES have been available in our gardening market for a couple of years, from my own experience they are tops!!! I have found that all these gerberas want to do is flower and flower, for virtually every month of the year. Gerberas have always been known in past years for getting rust disease and dying easily. These new Garvinea varieties are very good performers with the bad traits bred out of them. This gives an outstanding plant that I recommend.

One important point to remember is that Gerberas don't like continual, wet feet. Gerberas must have good drainage, especially in the winter months. There is a great range of Garvineas available now in plant shops/garden centres - with every colour palette covered. I have found from experience that the results will be far superior if you can use a lot of one colour rather than using many colours. Feed with a slow release fertiliser to get optimum results. The Garvinea gerberas are perfect for a sunny dry border, pots and containers, in fact anywhere that is well drained and gets heaps of sun. Gerberas are fantastic value if you like making floral arrangements or enjoy giving bunches of flowers.

At the end of winter (August/early Sept) I find that it is beneficial to cut off all of last seasons vegetative leaf growth at about 5cm above ground level. The plant will quickly regrow with a new set of leaves that are clean and fresh before it gets into serious flowering again.