Not necessarily Sir. If you ensure good drainage and protection from scorching heat & frost than they will survive. However, the flower size / number might reduce. But if they are not taken care of, they might not last even one season. But this can drastically vary from cultivar to cultivar. Some are quite hardy and some are extra delicate.aykhan wrote:So beautiful. I'm saddened to hear that my geberas will last only 2-3 years
And why is that so? You know Sir, by raising this point, you have touched a cord in my heart. I have never been a supporter of mutating plants for commercial purposes. As you know, Gerbera flowers are a hot item in cut flower industry. Now, various labs in India, Far East and Holland etc are coming up with cultivars that flower 10 or may be 20 times more than a specie Gerbera. The flowers are much more beautiful and large in size with a countless variety in colour. Every lab wants to comeup with cultivars in new colours, shapes and flowering intensity earlier than the other. Most of these hybrids are yet not established plants so they do their job, ie, produce lot of flowers in less time providing commercial benefits to their creater as well as grower and than die. Many of these hybrids which are old now, have settled down and are much more stable.
I don't deny the fact that hybridisation does occur in nature but that takes place over a period of time, giving the plant time to settle down and built it's own mechanisms to survive nature. In case of these cultivars which are being produced at an enormous speed without any control mechanism, the plants are generally weak (not in appearance but from robustness point of view) and are prone to diseases. But from commercial point of view, that might be even better as it will provide business to some insecticide company. Moreover, it may not be desirable to have plants which are robust enough to survive many years. Buy new plants, get maximum flowers in minimum time, sell the flowers at good profit and throw the plants away after they die.... buy new varieties and stay in commercial competition. Isn't this a better theory?
Sorry for this outburst but I really feel bad when I see such things happening. It's not that simple actually and understanding of ecosystem(s) is a complex thing. Playing with nature has consequences which most of the time are not instant and also, may not be pleasant. But over a period of time, we loose a lot, collectively, and thanks to our playing with nature without understanding it's consequences / long term after effects, this has already started happening in my view.
Now coming back to the topic. I try to buy old and known Gerbera cultivars as they are more robust but it is becoming increasingly difficult now. There are so many new cultivars with minor differences that one gets confused. What we can do at the max is taking good care of them. But even then some of them will not be strong enough to survive in the outside world and would need a controlled environment.
regards
