One of the most beautiful flowers and, at the same time, less known and more undervalued, are the so-called gerberas, flowers that can make your garden simply the most beautiful garden of all.
This plant is a plant that often grows in cold climates but with sun, that is, climates where direct sunlight but temperatures are not too high. This means that, as it could not be otherwise, these flowers are often found in many natural settings.
One of the examples is that they are usually found next to sunflowers, acting as companion plants to the latter. Gerberas when they bloom give rise to one of the most beautiful flowers that exist, since they not only grow in one color, but they grow in several.
This flower has a similar appearance and size to other popular flowers such as daisies, therefore, surely you have seen many flowers of this type throughout time and you have not realized that they were gerberas. Among the most common colors, we have the color red, which is the strongest color that these flowers have.
From the red color they go down to the white color within the color scale, being each time a little lighter and less colorful if we look at them. This means that we have flowers of this type for all tastes, such as for people who like flowers with very intense colors and those for people who like lighter colors.
In addition, we not only have the ornamental use of these flowers, but in a surprising way, without a doubt, we also have a medical use for this flower. Many people have managed to soothe muscle pain by applying a little of this flower directly to the aching muscle, relieving the symptoms of contractures and muscle pain almost instantly.
After all, who would not like to have a flower at home that apart from being very pretty, can be used as a natural remedy for muscle pain? I think it is the dream of all lovers of nature and aesthetics, since your home will simply be one of the most beautiful that we can find if you know how to grow this flower.
However, and as has been shown on more than one occasion, it is not so easy to learn how to grow and care for a flower in the correct way. Many people do not realize that plants are living beings and, just like us, they breathe and carry out vital functions. For this reason, plants must be cared for by people who know how to take care of them.
I have seen how gerberas were cared for by people who did not know much about the subject, something that almost always led to withered flowers, with worn color, with parasites or even dead in the first month of life, something very sad. However, I have seen that people who know how to grow them have a spectacular garden, which would be at the height of the cover of a magazine without a doubt.
That if, although it is a little more difficult than normal to grow this flower, it must also be said that really anyone can do it, as long as they have the necessary knowledge to carry out this task on their own. Even if you have never grown flowers, it is clear that if you know how to follow the steps correctly, you will be able to grow this flower and keep it in good condition forever, as long as its life cycle allows it of course.
This is precisely what we are going to learn here today, since we are going to learn step by step and very slowly, how we can learn to care for this flower, with the aim of having the best garden of all.
Instructions for caring for a gerbera
- Light and deep soil: The first thing we must take into account when growing gerberas is the type of soil in which we are going to do it. Many people forget the vital importance of the soil, something that should not be done, since it really is one of the most important parts of the plant and one of the ones that we must take into account without a doubt. In the case of this plant, it must be grown in fine soil, that is, one that can be easily moved. However, it must be grown in a deep soil downwards, since this flower takes out a fairly large root, which helps it to be able to take all the nutrients from the soil well. If you are going to grow in a garden, make sure that the land you have their meets these two things. If you are going to grow in a pot, you have to make sure that the pot is deep and fill it with soil, the more the better.
- Better cold than heat: As I said at the beginning of this article, cold is much better for this flower than color, but obviously without going overboard. These flowers are used to living in slightly cool environments, approximately 18 degrees below. For this reason, if you live in areas where the temperature is very high, you should put this plant inside the house with air conditioning or do without it. A good area to grow it is some area like the north of Spain, which has cold parts and is never suffocating hot, also having a good sun that will give the plant without damaging it.
- The importance of sunlight: Although this plant is one of those that are grown in fairly cold climates, we must bear in mind that cold is not the same as dark. These plants really eat a lot and as you know, one of the main foods of plants is sunlight itself. For this reason, if you have a plant of this type, what you should take care of is that it gets at least a few rays of sunlight, so that in this way, the plant can grow strong and the flowers beautiful. If the plant lacks sun, the flower will not grow properly, because in order to get those beautiful colors, the flower needs a lot of light, so try to get it directly from the sun, because in addition to making the flower more beautiful, it makes the plant bigger and more spectacular.
- Beware of summer: Summer is a beautiful time, however, you have to be careful with it on this plant. As I said before, although this plant likes the sunlight a lot, it does not like the heat so much. For this reason, in summer you have to be careful and store the plant in a place where the sun does not get so much, so it is the only time of year where you have to put the gerberas in the shade. Do not worry about the sun in summer, because even if we have placed the plant in the shade, it takes the so-called diffuse radiation, a type of radiation that does not come directly from the sun, but rather bounces off the ground and stays there. This sunlight is already enough for this flower to grow the way we want.
- Water abundantly: Now we are going to talk about how we have to water the plant and when we have to do it. As I have said before, this plant eats quite a lot and will not only eat the sunlight or the mineral salts of the earth with its abundant roots, but it will also feed on other things, such as water. For this reason, it is necessary to water abundantly, so that the plant always has food. That yes, this advice should not be misunderstood, because if you spend too much water, the only thing you are going to get is that the flower becomes waterlogged and in this way, you cannot do anything with it and it dies. The trick is to water so that the soil is moist but free of puddles. Also, in the summer, in times of heat, try to sprinkle a little water on the flowers, so that in this way the plant cools down and can avoid drying out due to the extremely high summer temperatures.
- Parasites: Finally we must be careful with some parasites that populate the plant, since these can only feed on the plant, eating its root, stem and of course, your precious flowers. Here we can spray pesticides to keep animals such as worms and other insects away, also having to prune the plant when necessary. We are going to do this for the simple reason that if we remove some branches that are left over; we are also going to reduce the number of parasites that are walking around, thus ensuring that the flower has a good aesthetic and is not eaten by parasites literally speaking.
