daisy
Botanical name: Bellis perennis
Folk names: day’s eye
Type: Perennial
Wildlife: Nectar for short-tongued insects including hoverflies and solitary bees.
Flowers: April to July, or all year in some places!
Decorative merit: Small open-petalled white flowers with yellow centres on short hairy stalks above flattened rosettes of spoon-shaped leaves. Low-growing and spreading. Flowers close at night and in cold weather.
Where: Sun or part-shade. Short grass or try in gravel beds, rockeries, containers and to edge borders.
Folklore: Making daisy chains while sat on the grass has long been a simple childhood pleasure. An old saying goes: ‘When you put your foot on seven daisies, summer is come.’
Daisy family relative of common knapweed, greater knapweed and yarrow
Donate seeds to Exeter Seed Bank