Gazanias, the pretty (awful) weed
Question: Why do you need a shovel when birdwatching?
Answer: Because the Gazania are everywhere.
This single Gazania plant is over 2 km from the nearest infestation!
Gazania are a perennial, wind-dispersed daisy from southern Africa, now widespread across Victoria. Sadly many people think they are wildflowers. But they’re not. They are evil weeds which can travel and invade undisturbed bushland. Worse, we have found that if you dig out a flowering plant and leave it, there is still enough energy in the root system to get the flowers to seeding stage. Now, if we find one in the bush and we can’t take the entire plant with us, we pull each flower head off individually and remove those, as well as pull the plant out by the roots.
This is a weed that will always be trying to sneak onto Raakajlim, because these are our nearby roadsides:
The “Advisory list of environmental weeds in Victoria” (1) places this as one of the “very high” risk weeds - highly invasive, significant impact on natural systems, extensive potential for further spread. Oh yeah, also has allelopathic properties (2), meaning the Gazania produces chemical compounds which make the soil unsuitable for other plants to grow.
If you absolutely must grow these daisies, you could plant the new sterile Gazanias. The "Grow me instead" website says “It is safe to grow the new sterile Gazania cultivars listed below. They have been specially bred as non-invasive and drought tolerant with improved growth habit, foliage, flower colours and size without viable seed set. Look for these new improved sterile varieties of Gazania at your local garden centre.”
Double Gold TM
Montezuma TM
Sunset Jane TM
Gazania research underway!
In 2023, many people headed out to collect Gazania seed to help researcher Ali Bajwa from LaTrobe University kick off a research project. We look forward to the results!
“In this GRDC funded project, our research team aims to understand how changes in climate and soil factors are affecting the biology and ecology of weed species affecting Australian grains. … to understand more about the most difficult weeds to manage, alterations in weed’s biology and ecology due to changes in climatic and soil factors and learn about new weed infestations.”
Further reading:
http://vro.agriculture.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/invasive_gazania_linearis
First published 14 October 2020, updated 8 July 2024