Blanket flower
Gaillardia pulchella Foug.
Also called blanket flower, firewheel, Indian blanket.
Annual or short-lived perennial daisy with red petals tipped in yellow around a dark centre, blooming from spring to frost. Thrives on hot sand and salt spray where few flowers will.
Size over time
Typical landscape size 0.3–0.6 m (12–24 in) tall and 0.3–0.5 m (12–18 in) wide; fast growth, about 2 years to maturity. Intermediate sizes use the planner’s growth curve (k = 0.45) from the #1 install size.
Bloom
Red and yellow flowers, May–Oct (northern-hemisphere months; timing shifts with region and season).
| Plant | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blanket flower : May–Oct |
Design notes
- Behaves as a reseeding annual; leave some seedheads and bare sandy soil for new plants.
- Rich soil and irrigation make it floppy and short-lived.
- Perennial blanket flower hybrids (Gaillardia × grandiflora) are a different plant.
Regions
Native range: Southern and central U.S. to northern Mexico, including Florida and Gulf Coast dunes and the Southwest; naturalized northward along the Atlantic coast.
Native to these OpenLandscape3D pilot regions:
Native status describes where the species occurs naturally. It is not a promise that it suits a particular garden; site conditions decide that.
In the guides
Blanket flower comes up in these guides:
Related plants
Try Blanket flower in a plan
Opens your own copy of a finished sample garden in the planner with Blanket flower ready to place; the planner checks it against that garden’s zone, light and moisture.
Plan with Blanket flower
Place it in a design, check it against your zone, light and moisture, and see it at year three and year ten.