Happy Easter everyone! Squee finally laid some Cabury Creme Eggs and 2 baby chicks, which we’ve been waiting a long, long time for, so it’s truly a great start to the day.
You know I typically stick to talking about plants from our general area, so today’s snatch is a bit of an outlier. I’ve always called these flowers African Daisies, but now that I’m looking into it they’re also called Namaqualand Daisies and Glandular Cape Marigolds (slightly less of a ring to that one). They’re from southern regions of Africa, including (you guessed it) South Africa and Namibia. They germinate with just about the same amount of winter rain as the native wildflower seeds in my yard, so there’s very little to feel guilty about as far as the non-native aspect goes.
While I’m not interested in carpeting the whole yard with these flowers, I think they look nice when they come up between various cacti, flowers, and shrubs. They add a splash of vibrant orange or yellow for about a month that’s hard to replicate. I love pairing them with purple verbena.
This snatch is really easy – probably our easiest yet. All you need to do is scope out a yard (more ideally an easement…don’t go creeping around someone’s backyard, please) with these growing, stop for a minute to tie your shoe, then pinch off a few of the whirligig-shaped seed heads. If the seeds are dry and ready, they will easily come off into your hand.
I spent about 3 minutes collecting seed from my own yard and came up with this bowl full – enough to get a decent new crop going.
I’ve noticed that the mourning doves are eating the heck out of the wildflower seeds in my yard, so I’ll probably store these until the first winter rain comes in November. If that sounds like too much planning for you, take your seeds and tuck them under a nice layer of mulch where the birds will have a harder time finding them over the course of the summer and fall. After you get one crop of these established they will reseed year after year, all for just a few minutes of your time!
