Phoenicians, Snowbirds and Daisy Lovers, This is Your Plant

Angelita Daisy (Tetraneuris acaulis).

Angelita means ‘little angel’ in Spanish and that is truly what it is. Your cheery garden angel.

While your coffee is brewing, step outside. These pleasant beauties just seem to say, “Good Morning”.  They can brighten your day with their delightful bright, yellow blooms and soft golden, yellow centers.

The blooms shoot up from the hearty, dark green, leafy, bushes beneath them. They take full sun but can tolerate part shade. They are lovely either planted in the ground or pots. This is a fabulous plant and one of my absolute favorites.

You can depend on them to bloom winter and spring and they require little maintenance and low watering.

I like to pick and pop off the dried blooms to keep them full and encourage more blooms about once every 2 weeks. Once I pop the dried bloom off, a straight brown dried stem remains, so I pinch that back to the bottom.

They look great alone, in a cluster and mix well with other flowers. They pop when mixed with other brightly colored plants such as red geraniums or blue salvia.. They’ll grow along borders, boulders, pools and around the base of larger green plants and bushes.

Angelita is native wildflower and a perennial. We love perennials! This gem can easily withstand even our worst Phoenix winters, and then they continue to look good into our summers up to the high of maybe 105 degrees. Thereafter, cut it way down and continue to water and it may very likely come back in November. It will reach about 8 inches tall and about 18 inches wide. While Angelitas will attract the butterflies and bees there is no fragrance to the people admiring its charm.

The time to plant is in spring but if the plant is already larger and well established it can also be planted in November. They don’t seem to have any problems with our soil. Because of their bloom time they make nice, living, colorful plants for all of you visiting winter snowbirds. Lovely to look at, no need for pruning and nice low maintenance. If left on a drip system all summer with some low afternoon shade, they will be waiting for you when you return next fall.

 coming up next…. easy veggies to grow and more spring flowers…. check back soon.