Pyrethrum daisy - a favorite of mine:

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Perennial here. One or two flowers in the first year but didn't really start blooming until the second year. Blooms when chives and irises are in bloom.

Doesn't need cold to germinate. Plant self sows in June for bloom the next year.

Tended to flop a bit - but not sure how much of that was the wet spring or them being in their first bloom year. I saved seed from the ones that didn't flop and sowed them. That set should bloom for the first time this coming spring.

They add a lot to the spring garden.

Lynda

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One more thing -

I was just looking at the comments I had made on my photos early May last year and on one of them I wrote about how the pyrethrum daisy foliage was basically evergreen all winter. Not bad for what was a particularly cold winter for us.

I think you're going to love them

Lynda

Pretty, Lynda. I didn't realize they were that tall.

Token: the names are synonymous it seems.

Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: Pyrethum

Awesome. These are going to go great with my summer blooming cosmos sensation mix. I have just the spot for them. I can't wait. I've got a pink/white bed I'm working on full of echinacea and cosmos. The crape myrtle there is a pink bloomer too. I've moved some white butterfly bushes and my last attempt at Russian sage into this bed in the past year.

Token, i picked up a pack of nasturtium seeds that said gets 5 to 6 ft tall, i was excited to see those! When i got home i googled the kind of seeds, only to find that they get 18 to 24 inches tall. They were also from burpee, wonder what the deal is with them? Youd think theyd be a little more accurate!
Those painted daisys sure look pretty! ill be looking for those seeds too.

I have been wanting these so bad. I winter sowed them in February and we had a few warm sunny days and they sprouted in February. And when the temp dropped the seedlings died. So is it possible that the seedlings are just not as hardy as the mature plant??? I plan to try again this year.

Lily, those are probably Burpee's climbing nasturtiums. You'll need to trellis them to get them to reach that high. They don't climb on their own. I planted some last year and they just sprawled.

Gardencrazy, I sowed some in August. I got sprouts too. The first frost killed them. So apparently, they aren't cold hardy. Or maybe the soil was too dry and they froze from lack of water. That's why I was wondering if they really are cold hardy.

Token, thanks, now i know what to do with them! How high did they grow for you sprawling?

They got about 5' across. But I didn't give them any extra care and here in our zone, they don't do well in the summer so the growth was sort of stunted. I had them planted with my tomatoes since they ward off squash bugs and other veggie destroyers. They twisted and twined through the patch pretty far.

Lynda can you tell me when you started your seeds?

Glenna -

I started them in warm weather.

The only ones that I ever wintersowed were sown in Jan/Feb and did nothing. At the time I thought it was because I must have harvested immature seed but now I'm thinking that Pyrethrum daisy might not be well suited to germinating when it's cold.

The plant blooms in May and naturally will drop it's seeds in June. Starting commercial seed (and the ripe seed from the second year I grew these) in May/June worked great for me.

I'll probably treat it like a half hardy annual for winter sowing, even though once it gets growing it's definitely a hardy perennial.

Lynda

That's great information to know Lynda. Thanks! I was planning to treat them like a perennial. I'll wait until April instead.

Lynda..how do you manage to keep weeds down in your flowerbeds? I see no mulch surrounding your flwoers. I love the color of the painted daisies. Beautiful! Guess one would be smart to buy or make some type of support for them to grow through, like you see for other plants to grow through..it keeps them from falling over.

Pippi21 wrote: "Lynda..how do you manage to keep weeds down in your flowerbeds?"

By weeding. :)

I'm getting a good feel for when my main weed growth seasons are here and a lot of them just get hoed away when they are super tiny. Also, by planting my WS seedlings out in hunks I can be ruthless about hoeing in between hunks. When the hunks start to bush out it gets even easier. Just puffing up the soil around the plants with a hoe or with fingers will pop weeds out then.

The hoeing is easy. I just carry a light hoe with me when I wander the garden to see what's blooming and poke at the soil when I see weeds in an area. Much easier than letting weeds get big and having to deal with taproots and such.

The garden design is also set up so that it's easy to weed. The aisles let me reach into any garden bed section easily - no weed is ever out of reach. The aisle around the outside of the garden keeps grasses from creeping in. And the aisles themselves get hoed with a wheel hoe. During peak weed growing times that's every week or two and during dry times that's monthly at most.

It's a little bit of busy work, but it is all super easy - so easy that it doesn't really interfere with enjoying the garden and looking at flowers.

I also do most of my watering by hand with a watering can. That lets me give each plant the right amount of water and doesn't end up watering places with no plants - keeping those areas more weed free.

I'm not going to worry about supports for the painted daisies. There is enough variation in stem strength that I think I can select for non-floppiness with just a few years of seed saving.

Also, I can find a place for floppy plants in my garden. They can get placed next to other plants that help prop them up, or be used in places where floppiness is a real advantage - like along ditch banks or on slopes. In those places flopping can help colonies grow and spread and eventually the center plants stand tall and the outer ones flop and claim more space for the next generation.

Lynda

Thank you Lynda. That is so much help. I didn't see your response before I sent you the email.
Have you had any problem with cut worm getting your painted daisy? The ones I started in my greenhouse got mowed down at ground level and left laying. Neighbor said it was cut worms.

Too may aliases! While it seems to be listed primarily as Tanacetum coccineum, three other names (Chrysanthemum coccineum, Chrysanthemum roseum and Pyrethrum roseum) are listed as "synonyms". And here is what happened to me last spring, adding to the confusion. I purchased seeds that were labeled painted daisy with a picture of flowers like the one's in Lynda's photo, but that is not what I got! -my seeds grew into leggy Chrysanthemum carinatum. Not that there's anything wrong with that particular flower, but it was just not what I was planning/hoping for. Buyer beware I guess.

Ellen

Token,
The painted daisies I sent you are "red" which is really a fuchsia, about the same color as rose campion. Mine got about 3ft by the second year.
-B

Thanks Brandy. I'm hoping to plant a lot of these. I assumed yours and these might be the same kind. :)

I'm really enjoying this line on painted daisies. They were one of the first flowers I grew when I started my first gardens in my own home! That's about 53 years ago!!
They were also favorites of my mom. I grew them with bearded iris and columbines--such nice contrasts of form and color.

Pyrethrum was suggested as a non poisonous insect repellent when people were just beginning to be wary about
DDT. I don't know whether it is leaves or roots that are
used for repellent. I would think it would at least be a
good companion plant for some other things. I have a remembrance that painted daisies are a short lived perennial so it would be a good idea to sow annually.

I'll be hunting it up to grow again. I have a raised bed
where I've had luck with direct late spring sowing of Canturbury Bells, sweet williams, columbines, foxgloves.
I think I'll try it there.

The photo is beautiful.

Chris

In doing more research, it seems that these flowers are the basis for many bug sprays, especially mosquitoes. I'm gonna love these things. I have mosquitoes the size of volkswagens in the back yard.

Mine I spring sowed and let them grow almost all summer in the jug. They never got much top growth, but when I finally planted them, they had a nice root system. So we shall see if they come back, hope so or I'll be disappointed. Kind of dainty feathery leaves.

Oh great another seed I want...

Where did you get yours?
Karen

I bought three packs from the seed rack here at Lowe's. There's a link up there I posted from the Burpee site. They have them for sale there too. Mine are also Burpee. And then Brandy is sending me some in a trade we're doing.

Thanks, I will check my Lowes. I did not recall seeds being there last time I was there. Time to check them out.

Karen

Bumping. Good discussion.

FYI no painted daisy at my lowes when I checked. I am on a mission to get all kinds of Rudbeckia now. Maybe painted daisy will be my mission next WS season :)

This is a great discussion.
Karen

I'm thinking this was the thread on Painted Daisies someone mentioned on one of my threads - mine are sprouted and it's only January... :)

My Painted Daisy did not look anything like on the package. I planted these 6/11/2009 and had blooms in early August, lots of blooms as a matter of fact.

As you can see from the picture they did not look anything like the package. They were beautiful just the same. It could be I had other things planted in the pot, who knows.

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Karen, I'm sorry I missed it back up the thread, think you were asking me where I got my seeds. Swallowtail.

no problem aliska! I really do have plenty of seeds right now. I doubt I will even sow them all!

Karen

Sweetlady - your flowers were Chrysanthemum carinatum, one of the two main flowers called "painted daisies".

Quite stupid of the seed company to throw a photo of the wrong one on the front of the package. If you look further up this thread you'll see that at least one other WSer bought a seed packet with Pyrethrum daisies on the front and got Chrysanthemum carinatum in the packet.

With the photos you have of seed packet and flower I'd be writing to Ferry Morse and asking for replacement or refund.

Lynda

At Lowes, you may find seeds in more than one location. Our Lowes has seed racks inside the front doors and seed racks, with different seeds, outside where plants are (or will be, depending on where you live).

Thank you Lynda. I am not up on my botanical name of plants and I prefer simple "painted daisy" much easier for me to remember :)

Sweetlady,
The same thing happened to me last year with burpee seeds. The packet said perennial painted daisy and I got those same annual daisies. I'm assuming the seed shipment from 'China" was miss labeled. Bummer for us both.
I bought a new packet from botantical interests, and the seeds look very different. Hopefully these are the right ones.:) Good luck this year.
:)Laura

My painted daisies and yellow marguerites always droop and need staking. Ready to rip them out. Am I doing something wrong?

You might be over feeding. And do they have full sun?