List Of Daisies For Your Garden

Daisies have found their way into every garden. They may be in the guise of marguerite, pyrethrum, or some other form, but to many of us they are daisies still. Several annual kinds, known by few gardeners, are worthy of a trial by every-one who enjoys the simple charm of daisy flowers.

One of these, the Lazy Daisy, drew exclamations from all my garden visitors last summer, and this was not because of its botanical name, which is Aphanostephus skirrobasis. The dainty, one-inch blossoms, with yellow centers and closely overlapping, white petals, stir up recollections of gay June fields and childhood picnics, although the flowers are smaller and the petals more pointed than in their well-known cousins.

I sowed mine early in spring, while the soil was still cool, in a sunny bed before a patch of Browallia Sapphire with pink candytuft in the foreground. This proved to be a happy combination. Since the foliage is meager, I left the plants rather close together. Their attractiveness is not marred by the tendency of each bloom-filled plant to bend to earth with its burden, for the flowers always face staunchly upwards. In a daisy the shameful habit of late rising may be condoned when it produces such a pleasant mingling of pink buds and slowly opening white flowers. Once fully awake they are the most wide-eyed, cheerful blossoms in the garden.

The Butter-Daisy, Verbesina encelioides, is a more robust flower. It grows 40 inches high, blooming from June to November. The bright yellow blossoms are indeed a wistful reminder of rich, golden country butter, but there is no scarcity of bloom. The flowers cut well and the notched, yellow petals with the rather coarse central disc of the same color make the blossoms good neighbors for blue cornflowers. I, the garden the bluish cast of the foliage and the sturdy, upright growth add to the value of the plants. The Lazy Daisy and the Butter-Daisy are both natives of America.

I have become very fond of the little South African Sand Daisy, Senecio arenarius, which is sometimes called annual Cineraria. The mauve petals are widely spaced about a small, yellow center and the flowers are borne on plants barely 15 inches high. Unfortunately, the period of bloom is not as long as one would wish, for by midsummer it is over. In spite of this I have put it down on my list as a “must” for next year.

The color and size of the Sand Daisy reminds one somewhat of hardy asters, but the flowers are not produced in such rampant profusion. Five or six blossoms open at once on a plant is average. Their low height and predilection for dry soil makes them suitable for the rock garden. A group of Sand Daisies bordered with the elfin, yellow Viola lutea will, I think, make a delightful color picture. Aphids developed a taste for the plants in my garden, but they were kept under control with a neem oil spray.

When an outdoor flowering plant grows in shade or sun, as does Madia elegans, it is welcome in most gardens. It looks like an outdoor living room. Madia’s clustered blossoms close in sun at noon, but’ in the shade of a house or wall they remain open all day. The petals are a deep yellow and each is triply cleft so that, except for their color, the flowers look like miniature replicas of the early Victorian lattice-edged plates seen in antique shops. A deep rust colored ring at the center of the flower emphasizes the brightness of the yellow, which is in pleasant contrast to the downy, gray-green foliage.

Because of their weak stems the plants require staking while still small lest they grow into unmanageable wiry spirals. Eventually the well-branched plants reach a height of three feet. The feathery petals give the one-inch blossom a unique appearance, like a roadside daisy transformed into a glamorous beauty. Perhaps it is because of this glorified station that Madia elegans requires more coddling than the other varieties mentioned here. This native of the West Coast likes a rich soil and feeding at regular intervals to maintain its vitality. The lovely blue perennial Veronica longifolia subsessilis is a willing escort for Madia in sun, but it lags behind unhappily in the shade, where it must be supplanted by a more congenial companion such as the Liatris pycnostachya.