{"id":5,"date":"2005-07-20T12:23:35","date_gmt":"2005-07-20T20:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=5"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:26","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:26","slug":"shasta-daisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/shasta-daisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Shasta Daisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

My house was built in 1882.\u00a0 \u00a0Two years later, in 1884, botanist Luther Burbank (1849-1926) began to build a better daisy.\u00a0 Another seventeen years passed while Burbank crossed various daisy species.\u00a0 Finally, in 1901, he introduced a new ornamental plant named after one of California’s natural wonders.\u00a0 The Shasta daisy, Leucanthemum x superbum, was born, and today a healthy stand of them are blooming in my front garden. \u00a0<\/strong>I didn’t think about the daisy’s historical appropriateness when I planted the first gallon pot five years ago.\u00a0 Now, I am gratified that in addition to looking spectacular at this time of year, Shastas are, historically, one of the best plants for my little home landscape.<\/p>\n

Another corner of my garden is home to a much smaller stand of Leucanthemum vulgare, the common ox-eye daisy, which is one of the parents of the Shasta.\u00a0 The ox-eye is a winsome plant, gangly at about eighteen inches tall, with narrow dissected leaves and one and a half inch white-petaled flowers.\u00a0 You can find it in fields and other out-of-the-way places, and it is lovely in its own way.\u00a0 Burbank, however, was a great believer in the idea that everything could be made better through science, including the daisy.\u00a0 He created the “All-American”\u009d Shasta by crossing the ox-eye, which is native to Europe and parts of Asia with other daisy species that originated in England, Portugal and Japan.\u00a0 All of these adventures in foreign affairs took place at Burbank’s home in Santa Rosa, California.\u00a0 Given its multi-national heritage, it is not surprising that the Shasta became a favorite worldwide.<\/p>\n

Shastas are classic “pass along”\u009d plants because they are so easy to grow.\u00a0 Like their field daisy ancestors, they are not fussy about soil, and thrive in just about any sunny spot. \u00a0Once established, they do not need a lot of supplemental water.\u00a0 The plants multiply rapidly into healthy clumps, but if the clumps grow too large, dividing is easy.\u00a0 Simply dig up the clump, divide the roots with a sharp spade or a garden utility knife and replant the divisions.\u00a0 Doing this every few years will keep the plants healthy.\u00a0 When the daisies are blooming, pick the flowers or deadhead the plants to promote rebloom.<\/p>\n

Over the years hybridizers have had their way with Burbank’s original.\u00a0 There are more than twenty cultivars currently on the market, including one, ‘Chuck’s Delight’ that can only be obtained by visiting Luther Burbank’s Gold Ridge Experimental Farm in Sebastopol, California.<\/p>\n

If you can’t get to Sebastopol, consider going to the local nursery and picking up Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Becky’.\u00a0 ‘Becky’ has big, bright single flowers with crisp white petals and quarter-size yellow centers.\u00a0 It grows to be about three feet tall and blooms in early summer.\u00a0 ‘Becky’ is such a stellar performer that the Perennial Plant Association named it their “Perennial Plant of the Year”\u009d in 2003.<\/p>\n

Other, slightly shorter single-flowered varieties include ‘Switzerland’ and ‘Alaska’, both of which are about twenty-four inches tall.<\/p>\n

For smaller spaces or containers, try little ‘Tinkerbelle’, a dwarf variety that grows only eight inches tall and has single flowers.\u00a0 The slightly larger ‘Snowcap’, at fourteen inches high, is another small space option.\u00a0 For full-size flowers on a relatively compact plant, try ‘Little Princess,’ which grows eighteen inches tall.<\/p>\n

For those who like something a little different, there are several double-flowered varieties of L. x superbum.\u00a0 The aptly named ‘Fluffy’ is tall–twenty-eight inches–with a double row of petals.\u00a0 One catalog describes ‘Fluffy’s blossoms as attractively “shaggy”\u009d.\u00a0 ‘Aglaya’, sometimes spelled ‘Aglaia’, has petals that are not only doubled but frilled.\u00a0 ‘Crazy Daisy’ goes ‘Aglaya’ one better with “frilled, quilled and twisted”\u009d petals.\u00a0 And if ‘Crazy Daisy’ doesn’t cause enough excitement in the garden, then look to ‘Wirral Pride’, a twenty-four inch plant whose blossoms consist of a fluffy short-petaled top crest surrounded by a collar of long drooping petals.<\/p>\n

For some hybridizers no combination of frills, quills, crests and triple rows of petals is enough; color is what matters.\u00a0 ‘Sunshine’ is a German hybrid that substitutes sunny soft yellow petals for the white of more common varieties.\u00a0 I found ‘Sunshine’ at a wonderful nursery in central New York State, and it is currently awaiting garden installation.\u00a0 I have high hopes that it will be as vigorous and beautiful as its Leucanthemum x superbum siblings.<\/p>\n

There are some people who would probably say, “A daisy is a daisy,”\u009d and wonder why anyone would be interested in the many hybrid Leucanthemums.\u00a0 There are others who try to acquire every single cultivar.\u00a0 Most of the rest of us fall somewhere in between those two extremes.\u00a0 If you want to expand your Shasta repertoire, check with your local nursery.\u00a0 For further selections contact Bluestone Perennials, 7211 Middle Ridge Road, Madison, OH 44057, Phone (800) 852-5243, www.bluestoneperennials.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My house was built in 1882.\u00a0 \u00a0Two years later, in 1884, botanist Luther Burbank (1849-1926) began to build a better daisy.\u00a0 Another seventeen years passed while Burbank crossed various daisy species.\u00a0 Finally, in 1901, he introduced a new ornamental plant named after one of California’s natural wonders.\u00a0 The Shasta daisy, Leucanthemum x superbum, was born, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1767,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}