The lawn daisy Bellis perennis grows in lawns! If it grows in yours you may be surprised to learn it’s not common in every lawn and I’m not writing about lawns that are man-managed. Bellis sylvestris is bigger. It’s not native but is one of the parents of those winter blooming bedding daisies that were all the rage in the 1960’s and have virtually disappeared from cultivation.
Cultivars of lawn daisies have been grown for many centuries. Currently I’m entranced by ‘Hen and Chickens’ or ‘Prolifica’. This has relatively large double white flowers with flecks of pink. As the flower ages two things happen; the flower goes a richer pink overall and subsidiary flowers emerge from beneath the feathers – all round until it is surrounded by a ring of as yet paler white, pink flecked subsidiary flowers. The whole thing ends by looking like a very big deep pink daisy.
I’ve grown others. ‘Rob Roy’ had bright red-pink flowers, ‘Dresden China’ whose bright pink flowers were small and consisted of only disc florets. I still have ‘Alice’ a superb even-shaped, even-coloured pink double which starts with a creamy lime green centre, ‘The Pearl’ which is similarly shaped and even but pearly white and an old unnamed medium-sized deep pink double.
Lawn daisies shouldn’t die but they do. To keep them alive beyond two or three years they need constant division. Why? Is this because recently divided plants need care and water and without division they would be neglected? I’d love to know. The old unnamed variety has a reputation for being more persistent. This may be because it’s slightly more adventurous expanding slowly in a flower bed. Maybe its persistence is why it’s old and unnamed. It’s proved a winter delight.
