I'm in zone 3. I absolutely love this flower. However, I bought one at the local nursery and I don't think it's doing well. Does anyone know of any problems this flower might have? The blooms seem short lived and trumpeted petals aren't very full. It seems sort of droopy and the leaves are part brown, almost like it has a fungus of some kind. It sits in full sun. I water it about once a week because it's a drought tolerant plant and I have tulip bulbs underneath. I really don't want to dig it up and take it back. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Poor soil? Otherwise, it's been a very hardy plant for me.

Maybe you can find some helpful info here...
http://www.gaillardiafanfare.com/plantcare.htm

If you are in Lakewood Ohio, I think your gardening zone would be z5 or z5b maybe, not z3. You can go to this website and plug in your zip code to find out the correct gardening zone... http://www.garden.org/zipzone/

I hope this post doesn't get yanked for using direct links. :-)

I really haven't had any trouble with mine, but I didn't feel the trumpeted petals weren't as full as I expected them to be. I'm anxious to see how it performs this year.

new plantings need more water at the beginning until they get established. especially if they are in full sun.

WOW!
I had myself all the way in Canada!
All, thanks for the help.

Oh geesh, just for fun, I went to garden.org to see what it would say. Well, when I put in my zip code it said I was in zone 6a and I've always been told we were in zone 5b.

After the zone changes were made (by USDA?) a couple of years ago, ours went from z6b to z7a.

Gaillardia doesn't like transplanting very much. I think they just get droopy when establishing themselves. I've never had fungus on them but maybe it could have something like that if the leaves are brown. Maybe the nursery sold one that isn't healthy.

Well, it's been a full month and my gaillardia fanfare is doing it's worst yet. Finally, every single bloom is droopy, even the two buds that are hanging on. It's "lost alot of weight" and looks tired. I'm positive that last week was the last flower bloom I'll enjoy from that plant. I tried to water more, I fed once a week, and I even tried the slug bait that I use for my Hosta's. Nothing has worked. I feel so helpless. I've searched the net for possible solutions but I can't find one site that displays problems of the plant....

Since it was this year that you bought it , and it's been doing poorly since transplanting it, I would take it back. Either it had something when you bought it or the roots were damaged somehow ?