Gardening with the radio on is a Sunday treat. I have a solar powered, wind up radio and if it is sunny or at least relatively bright I can listen all the time without winding. (I am however indoors just now as a large cloud followed by a heavy downpour brought me inside.)
‘Gardener’s Question Time’ (BBC Radio 4) this afternoon included a question about daisies in the lawn: not how to get rid of them, but how to encourage them to establish in the lawn – Hurrah! I thought it was only me who had this odd idea that they enhance and do not detract from the sight of grass in a garden.
I can remember returning from South Africa one November in the early 1960’s to live at my Grandparent’s house. By the spring we were living in a small rented cottage in the grounds of a large house. Our small cottage was amongst a wild untamed area at the edge of a wood, where my brother and I were able to run feral much of the time, but the big house had a huge lawn and a tennis court and a lake and we were often invited to play. The daisies there on the big lawn were marvellous, with lovely long stems. I learned to make excellent daisy chains.
I can remember vividly one day watching as the large lawn was cut by a huge ride on mower and bursting into tears as each sweep of the noisy machine left a clean green stripe of grass devoid of daisy heads. My mother comforted me with
“Don’t be silly. They’ll be back by tomorrow.”
The next day I crept over to the big house, not really believing what she had told me, to see a beautiful sight: the return of the daisies.
When we moved to this house there were no daisies. Buttercups and dandelions, yes. But no daisies.
I am pleased to report a clump of daisies have now established themselves.
🙂
Boadicea's Chariot 
I rather like daisies too.
We don’t have them here at the lower elevations, but on the way up to the mountain, there is a ranger station with a lovely daisy ridden lawn, must be 1500′ or so.
curious that they are not here at 600′.
I used to festoon the dogs with daisy chains, in fact, I have to admit that we often stop for lunch at that daisy lawn and last year I sat and made a necklace for the JR supervisor, she wore it for hours till it fell apart.
Old habits die hard.
I used to try and hoik out daisies by hand because they prevent the grass from growing under their leaves but I have given up. We have loads.
What I’d like to know is, what is it about plants like daisies and dandelions that makes them grow very low in order to survive repeated mowings? It’s as though they “learn” to survive.
It fascinates me the way they adapt so quickly to overcome adverse conditions. Any ideas Christina? What message is transmitted, and how and to what part of the plant?
Jan,
Isn’t it to do with surviving as a plant in an animal grazed meadow? If the leaves are flat enough they won’t be eaten…
Christina, I love the idea of a daisy dog chain!
Did anyone hear Russel Crowe and Mark Lawson on ‘Pick of the Week’ – here is the interview:-
Arrogant or what?
Evenin Pseu – Who was it who said that a weed is merely a flower growing in the wrong place?
OZ
Just listened to Crowe, Pseu. He really can’t stand criticism can he? Bless ‘im. Such a good actor but such a big plonker in person.
Drat, I commented on the daisy thing a minute a go and it obviously didn’t save. I just said, same conditions really Pseu, chewing down/mowing is the catalyst for what? What is released or happens chemically within the plant to make it grow stunted, it’s strategy for survival and propagation? Plants don’t have brains. It’s got to be a chemical process that initiates a change of growing habit. I just wonder what, and how?
Definitely a daisy fan, and I remember lots of buttercups too, when I was a child.
We have a daisies here in plenty, no buttercups and millions of dandelions everywhere!
I too like daisy’s in the lawn, they look pretty. I once made myself a small area of Camomile lawn, it’s so soft to sit on, and the smell heavenly. Perhaps we should start a campaign
“Save the Daisy”. Okay, not so good for playing bowls on but how many of us play bowls in our back garden.
Surely it’s simply “the survival of the fittest,” Jan. The short stunted plants didn’t get eaten so much so they were the ones that went onto reproduce and over eons they evolved to be that size and shape?
How can I encourage them? I have none in my garden and as yourselves, I would love to have a daisy lawn-I have wild primroses, buttercups, dandelions and blue and pink bells, Michalmas (sp) daisy’s growing in my hedge, non of which I planted, just sort of found there own way there, but I would love some daisy’s|!
🙂
xxx
They discuss how on the program, which you can hear by clicking on the link in the blog, Oggy Kate. One method was to take a kitchen knife and take a ‘plug’ out of a lawn where they are abundant and insert this into your own lawn.
Were there any weeds in the Garden of Eden? I don’t think so.
A Weed is a flower in the wrong place by Ian Emberson
A weed is a flower in the wrong place,
a flower is a weed in the right place,
if you were a weed in the right place
you would be a flower;
but seeing as you’re a weed in the wrong place
you’re only a weed –
its high time someone pulled you out.
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/ian_emberson/poems/22042
When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed
and not a valuable plant is to pull on it.
If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
saying by Anon
I rather suspect that it is both, that is the flattening of dandelions especially. The flat ones survive and breed more flat ones but the mechanism by which they flatten is most likely biochemical.
I’ll email my brother in law who is a plant pathologist, he may be able to shed more light on it.
Excellent, Christina. Keep us posted. 🙂