ox eye daisy.

shei111 · #1 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 07:23 PM

Hello I just wanted to tell everyone about my love of the wild flower ox eye daisy , I put a few plants in my perrenial borders when I moved here 2 years ago and they have spread so much each year , they stand near 2 foot tall and I just love them , they self seed alot too but I divide clumps each spring . I have 3 borders all 16 feet long X 3 feet wide and they are covered in daisies .

Ive also got loads of the same daisy family the leucanthemum daisy , they all flower from may onwards , and the bees and butterflies love them as much as I do.
shei.

treecreeper · #2 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 07:26 PM

Look at the banks alongside any new road development and you will see thousands of these. I don't know if they deliberately plant them.

Chris Yeates · #3 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treecreeper

Look at the banks alongside any new road development and you will see thousands of these. I don't know if they deliberately plant them.

I strongly suspect they do

Ox-eye daisy comes near the top proportionally in "wild"flower mixes - instant countryside eh? widen a road, destroy the existing hedges/grassland etc, but look - now we're finished - swathes of white! it looks better than it did before . . . .

(nothing against Leucanthemum itself, mind)

I'll go and stable the high horse

Chris

treecreeper · #4 (**permalink**) 10-06-2009, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

I strongly suspect they do

Ox-eye daisy comes near the top proportionally in "wild"flower mixes - instant countryside eh? widen a road, destroy the existing hedges/grassland etc, but look - now we're finished - swathes of white! it looks better than it did before . . . .

(nothing against Leucanthemum itself, mind)

I'll go and stable the high horse

Chris

This brings back a nauseating memory from the eighties. I think it was when they were putting the M40 through beautiful Oxfordshire. The minister responsible (I think it was Nicholas Ridley) told us that the motorway was a benefit because the wildlife on the verges would mean there would be 'a net environmental gain'.

shei111 · #5 (**permalink**) 11-06-2009, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treecreeper

Look at the banks alongside any new road development and you will see thousands of these. I don't know if they deliberately plant them.

I believe to start a new roadside verge they do put wild flower seeds the first year, then after they all normally self seed which is a beautiful sight. shei

Dutchess · #6 (**permalink**) 11-06-2009, 05:50 PM

Hi Shei

Can I join your Daisy fan club? I too adore the daisy family, right from those timy little ones on the lawn (I mow around them!) to the Michaemas of autumn. I cannot resist stopping to examine the beauty of one close-up. Only a couple of weeks back someone looked at me rather strangely as I had stopped in the street to do this, so I pointed out to her the intricacy of the flower if you looked really carefully...

She walked away impressed but at the same time I think a litle perturbed that anyone should feel the need to share the news! lol (so I understand where you are coming from!)

Yes, Ox-eyes are gorgeous!

D.

Kayleigh · #7 (**permalink**) 11-06-2009, 07:02 PM

I have sprinkled the seeds you sent me Shei around the garden so hope I will get some coming up soon..

links03rjean · #8 (**permalink**) 28-09-2009, 08:17 AM

hi am a newbie here!....i also love wild flowers especially daisies....i wish i can have one of those on my garden...it would looked lovely on my newly garden design garden....

Johnny Redgate · #9 (**permalink**) 28-09-2009, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treecreeper

Look at the banks alongside any new road development and you will see thousands of these. I don't know if they deliberately plant them.

A few years ago I worked on verge surveys for the Highways Agency and have surveyed large parts of the M1, M5, M50, M25 and many trunk roads. The job was just as noisy, dirty and frankly scary at times as it sounds but there is a lot of interest out there.

Many cuttings on new roads do get a wildflower mix seeded and they are easy enough to spot. (I don't personally see the problem in this and road landscaping schemes tend to be much better thought out than previously. Would you rather have no landscaping??) The most interesting verges florally are those that have developed naturally on poor quality or thinly spread topsoil. We used to do an initial drive-by survey to spot these areas to come back and have a more detailed look at. One of our indicators for a closer look was, yes, a good population of Ox-eye Daisy. So I'll sign up for the O-e D fan club too

Ridley's comment about the M40 was one of the crassest he ever made. Didn't it actually go through Aston Hill NNR?

honedan · #10 (**permalink**) 28-09-2009, 01:19 PM

I too like ox-eye althoug I think the planting schemes have gone a bit made with it in the last couple of years that and vetches both of which I like although we all know variety or diversity is the spice of life and so I think that people can be fooled as said before in thinking that it a swaith of diversity when it is can be a mono-culture of grasses and ox eye daisy. Nevertheless I would much rather see oxe-eye than that standard hawthorn field maple saplings along the road.