Daisy to the rescue................

I love ox-eye daisies, although not their 'grown up' name as my daughter woud say for the latin, (Leucanthemum vulgare or Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), what a mouthful! Whilst the plant is quite common - I think its under-used in the garden. And, this lovely little monster has certainly helped me out of a rather tricky spot on more than one occassion. I love it in the garden and I love it as a cut flower - even a single flower looks great in a jug or a cup on a table. I have a painting I love - my lovely ox-eye daisies in a lovely vase - need to take a photo of it! We often have daisies on the table - I love them and it would appear, I'm not alone - good article link there:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/5623401/How-to-grow-an-ox-eye-daisy-meadow.html

With that in mind, I've been trying to figure out how to get more of them into the garden - good for my soul to see them in the garden and good for the pocket as I will use them as a cut flower in the house. And good for the carbon foot print as they are a native local plant which I can get here. I've a bit of a weedy rocky spot in between the byres - I wanted something that could stand upto the wind - tolerate a bit of grass competition - and also will look 'natural' - and a nice cheery welcome for folk coming to the house. Its very exposed out there, normal garden plants would need to be very tough to stand it out there - no point in summer bedding - it would get blown to shreds. I think I need a daisy patch right in the yard, which I can see from the back door in the morning.

I can't think of anything nicer that a lovely cheerful patch of daisies bobbing in the wind. I built it up with a few old rocks from the old byre building (in the field) and some soil I got from freecycle - that way the roots will get established nicely and if they grass comes back (when the grass comes back) I can live with the 'natural' look - I'm aiming to make it look as if the stones, daisies and grass have always been there to cheerily greet any visitors. Thats the plan anyway. This is the first bit of 'landscaping' I've done here - I wanted it to fit in, be pretty and functional enough to just leave it to get on with it. I hope it works - the semi-circle is a good way of keeping away from the edge of the wall where its rocky and horrible and making the two byres look interesting.

Ox-eye daisy is great as a cut flower, keeps well and looks lovely repeat flowers again and again - and I'll be able to take root cuttings/split up the plants each year. Its a great mixed in with other plants - its a good ground hugger when growing - so weed's don't really stand a chance - and if you're thinking of trying to make a grassy area look a bit more 'wild flower-ish' this plant can hold its own against even grass and it is very pretty! I thought it would be a good plant to have in an area I wanted to look natural, be at home with the stones and the byres and pretty in any grass that regrows - its native - so it could almost have accidentally landed there all by itself. Not quite, but almost. Key to a good design is to look at it once its done and after a day or two just look as if its natural - fitting into the family very quickly, like its always been there.

Ox-eye daisies are a bit of a toughie, but a goodie its a native plant and pretty robust! Easy peasy from seed - and can be readily collected after flowering - very easy from root cuttings - or division - one tiny patch can give you alot of plants. Here are mine - I did a whole load of seeds in a couple of seed trays - forgot about them and then after about a year - (when moved house) I split up the plants and put them into a fish box to grow on - when I dug them up earlier this year my two seed trays - gave me a wheel barrows worth of plants - from one packet of 99p seeds!

I wanted something in that patch which would die back in the winter - its dreadfully exposed and although I had thought of a budelia or a hebe - I think really we need something hardy, native and pretty for that patch - a perennial plant like the ox-eye daisy will be wonderful there and very very cheery in the summer. There it is all planted a few months ago - all ready to establish before the winter and the snow landed on top of it!

It thawed out today and all of the little ox-eye daisies are still sitting there having been covered with snow - waiting for spring to arrive - just shows they are tough little soldiers! The grass is growing back around the edges of the stones which now look as if they've been there for ages. The total cost of the bed/plants and hard landscaping - 99p for the seeds gave me about 30 plants - the plants did the rest, stones free being 'recycled' and the chap from freecycle delivered the soil for free. I'm quite happy with it for that price, a very grand but frugal design or what?