How To Grow Daisies

Mary's Tears

There are many legends about the daisy. The most touching legend is connected with the execution of Christ. Then the Virgin Mary mourned him all night, and at sunrise her tears turned into beautiful snow-white flowers resembling pearls. These flowers are called daisies.

Perhaps such an abundance of legends surrounding flowers is due to the fact that in those distant times there were very few garden, that is, tamed flowers, people simply selected bright, pleasing forms from the pantries of nature and surrounded them with legends. But the daisy, both in antiquity and now, enjoys well-deserved respect.

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Modern science, studying the medicinal properties of the daisy, found in it a large amount of vitamin C, mucous substances, essential oils and saponins. And if we add to all of the above that it is one of the earliest spring crops, then flower growers may well combine what is pleasing to the eye with health benefits.

In the wild, the daisy grows in southern and central Europe, Western Asia, North Africa and the Caucasus. This unpretentious plant, no more than ten centimeters, has a large root rosette of leaves and non-double (wild) baskets of white, pink or red that rise on separate peduncles. In nature, the daisy prefers to grow in shady forest glades or damp meadows.

Naturally, when breeding a daisy in a culture, flower growers try to create similar growing conditions for it. It is photophilous, but it can grow and develop well in partial shade. And in the latter case, although there are slightly fewer flowers, their baskets are larger and brighter colored.

Soils are preferable medium loamy, rich in humus and humus. The daisy reacts very well to the pre-planting introduction of semi-rotted manure into the soil, and also needs three or four additional fertilizing during the growing season with organic or mineral fertilizers in the form of nutrient solutions. The first feeding can be nitrogen or complete, but the last one is only potassium-phosphorus to help the plant better prepare for winter. Daisies need loosening and watering, as they can suffer not only from dry soil, but also from dry air: in the sun, even the best terry variety degenerates and becomes smaller.

Reproduction of daisies

The daisy blooms from spring to the very frost, so it looks great in mixborders along the paths, in separate flower beds in combination with forget-me-nots and graceful gypsophila or on the shaded side of rockeries.

It reproduces in three ways: by seeds, cuttings and division of adult bushes. Seeds of non-double or semi-double varieties can be taken from your plants, but double varieties degenerate during seed propagation. To acquire such a variety, it is worth using F1 seeds, and in the future, use another method of propagation.

In our climate, it is considered optimal to grow a daisy as a biennial crop. If sown too early, although it blooms in the first year, then in winter there are too many attacks, and the surviving plants become frail and age quickly. Therefore, sowing seeds is carried out in late June - early July.

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For this purpose, it is best to use cold greenhouses or nurseries, covered with a film, in which seedlings appear already on the fifth or seventh day. All the time of cultivation, it is necessary to monitor the soil moisture and prevent overheating of the seedlings. A month later, they are picked from the greenhouse onto the ridges according to the 5x5 cm scheme, and the seedlings should be transplanted into the ground to a permanent place no later than September or next spring.

With proper agricultural technology, young plants have time to form not only a good root rosette, but also the rudiments of buds. The daisy transfers a transplant easily. In the first year of wintering, after the soil freezes, the plants should be completely mulched with dry peat or sawdust, and spruce branches should be laid on top for snow retention. In subsequent years, such protection will not be required. Daisy is a frost-resistant plant, only some of its double forms are somewhat more whimsical. When planting in autumn, in order to avoid spring bulging of plants, it is necessary to ensure that the earth settles well.

Daisy reproduces vegetatively by cuttings and dividing the bush. Individual adult bushes live no longer than five years, but at this age they are an excellent material for obtaining young plants, and at the same time preserving your favorite variety. The bush is removed from the ground and divided into five to eight parts, which are planted in the usual way, in fertilized soil, at a distance of 30 cm from each other. This operation is especially easy during the flowering of the daisy.

Cutting is best done in late May - early June: using a sharp knife, very carefully separate the branching shoots on the sides of the bush, so that each shoot ends with a small rosette, and planted for rooting. At first, they need to be shaded and monitored for soil moisture, but by autumn they usually have time to catch up with adult plants in their development.

Now breeders are working hard with the daisy, and its color scheme becomes richer from year to year, so that for flower gardens in partial shade it is simply an irreplaceable plant.