How to Grow Daisies, easily!

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How to Grow Daisies in your cottage garden. An easy, drought tolerant perennial that comes in many shapes, sizes and forms. There is a daisy for every garden!

Daisies come in all shapes and sizes.  Though I mostly think of white when the term Daisy is used there are many colors and types.  

Planting daisies is as easy as tossing some seeds in Fall. The many varieties make them such an easy flower to grow in your cottage garden.

Here we are going to stick to the Shasta daisy because that is what I have grown the most of. Come on over and let me share how to grow daisies.

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The photos below are called Crazy Daisy.
Heirloom Shasta Daisy seeds are available here or buy the plants.

shasta daisy, crazy daisy variety, how to grow daisies

Types of Daisies

The Shasta Daisy is a classic perennial, here in my garden, Zone 8, they happily spread by seed of their own volition but are not hard to dig up if they sprout where you do not want them.  

One packet of seeds can produce plants that look a bit different from each other.

Easy to Grow Shasta Daisy, all shapes and sizes, easily propagated! FlowerPatchFarmhouse.com

Some with long petals that drape and some with short stubby petals.

How to Grow a Shasta Daisy, FlowerPatchFarmhouse.com (12 of 14)

Shasta daisies tend to bloom in clumps from 2 to 3 feet tall and 1 to 2 feet wide.  Daisies are great for cutting and summer bouquets.

Alaska Shasta Daisy is the most famous cultivar of this beautiful European wildflower. The large white flowers are perfect for cutting. There are newer hybrids that promise longer blooming times, for example, Daisy May Amazing Daisies from Proven Winners.

How to Keep your Daisies Blooming

Regularly cutting and deadheading is what keeps them blooming.  There is the first flush of tons of blooms and then the later blooms come in spurts and not as abundantly as at first but they can keep blooming.

Daisies and rudbeckia flowers, flower patch farmhouse

Another plus in my garden is the deer don’t seem to like them.

Plants they avoid in my garden

Deer Resistant Flowers and Shrubs

Deer can eat your beautiful blooms to a nub but there are some flowers and shrubs that they usually avoid. Here are some tips and tricks to planting a garden deer seem to shy away from.

Something I cannot say enough is good soil is key to growing most flowers, click on over to read how I started building my soil.  Lazy Gal’s Garden Guide 1

Plant and Grow Daisies

Plant your daisies in full sun. Good soil drainage is also needed. Daisies do not like wet feet.

You can direct seed daisies in Fall. For more info on that I have a full article on sowing seeds in Fall.

You can also Winter sow daisy seeds or you can buy plants at your local garden center.

Space your daisy seedlings or plant 1 to 2 feet apart. Dig a hole about twice the size as the diameter of the container it is growing in. Place in planting hole making sure the top of the root ball is level with the soil surface.

Firm in the soil around the root ball. Water thoroughly.

Do not overwater, this will cause overly tall, gangly plants that need staking. They will also tend to reach for the sun if they are located in a shady spot.

Crazy daisy ruffly

Water requirements

Water during the summer months only if you get less than an inch of rain a week. Once well-established Daisies are much more drought tolerant and can withstand drier conditions.

When deadheading your daisies or cutting for bouquets cut down to a newly forming bud. This is usually at a leaf juncture. Want to know more about deadheading, see this article.

After your first killing freeze, you can leave the daisies for the birds to pluck the seeds or you can cut the stems down around an inch from the ground.

In some areas, daisies will be done blooming earlier than in others. In that case, I plant White Echinacea to bring that pop of white to the garden.

I like leaving them for the birds though it can look messy and be warned they will reseed themselves readily.

In early Spring add compost around daisies as mulch to discourage weeds. Every 3 to 4 years divide daisies to prevent overcrowding, I show you how here.

Propagate a Daisy

I already linked to posts above about starting daisies from seed and propagating by dividing.

Many are hybrids, like the Crazy Daisy, that will not come true from seed but you will get some interesting daisies if you let the seeds spread.

But if you want a quick overview of dividing daisies here it is.
Dig up the plant in Fall or early Spring making sure to dig well around the root ball.

Have a 5-gallon bucket half-filled with water ready to dunk the entire root ball into.  As the water gently washes away the soil you can see the individual plants and you can pull or cut them apart.

Replant divisions in pots or your new location for them.

Daisies with text overlay, Grow Fantastic Daisies, beginner friendly, Flower Patch Farmhouse

Daisy sizes you can grow

The daisy heights depend on the cultivar. So before you plant in your beds or garden check how tall the variety you are planting can get.

There are shorter ones for the front of the beds and taller ones for the middle or back. I am trying a new to me variety that is supposed to have a much longer blooming time than most others and I will update here after the trial period.

With most varieties of daisies, you will get the first flush of blooms and then sporadic blooming if you deadhead regularly.

There is no mystery as to why Daisies are a cottage garden favorite.  Easy to grow daisies fill in swiftly making for great swathes of white to enhance your other cottage flowers.

Go ahead and plant some seeds today or find a neighbor wanting to divide theirs.  Garden centers too should carry the hybrids that are just as much fun.

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Until we meet again, I will be in the garden!

learn to paint

A Simple Daisy

Growing daisies is fun but you can also paint them. Learn how in this easy step-by-step tutorial for beginners!

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8 Comments

  1. It is so hard to say what the issue may as there are so many variables that are unknown for me. Your soil sounds fine. Try direct sowing of seeds. They do begin to fade this time of year so let the ones you have go to seed and toss the seeds onto your soil and see what happens next season. The variety you have may be a sterile variety so buy some seeds and try that too. Sorry I could not be more help.

  2. Theresa C Pryor says:

    Mine are in a clay pot and seem to be dying. We are getting a lot of rain. Last year I planned them and I lost them. I have really rich black dirt with lots of Earth worms on top of clay

    I love love Daisy’s please help the remind me of my deceased dad

  3. Yes, dividing the daisies will really make them healthier and then bloom larger.

  4. After 2 or 3 years my daisy’s spread so the are close tog gather and get smaller. Should I weed some out so they are not so close?

  5. teresa collins says:

    I bought a pot of daisies. the pot has 3 blooming flowers. Is that considered 1 whole plant or does each flower a plant?

  6. Not really, sometimes giving all the info can see complicated but toss out the seeds and keep moist until they germinate and give it a whirl. They are tough and will take all sorts of abuse. Some varieties will bloom this year and some won’t until next. Also if you buy a six pack of plants at a nursery you will get flowers this year. I bought some Silver Princess for a shorter version and I loved them, I still have them to this day, some were much shorter than others but they all bloomed wonderfully.

  7. Goodness, this is more complicated than I expected. As always, you give us good information and pictures, so how can we go wrong?

  8. I love the frayed edges on those daisies. Mine are shasta so they don’t look nearly as cute as those. I need to move mine this year they are blocking our name on our entrance sign. I should have know better when I planted them.

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