Spring daisy display

In the spring of 2008, the horticulturists and general staff planted a combination of 12,000 everlastings and other daisy flowers in a colourful mass planting adjacent to the Rock Garden lawn.

The four species of perennial (everlasting) and annual daisies used were:

Rhodanthe chlorocephala (pink or white 'papery' flowers)
Rhodanthe humboldtiana (yellow 'papery' flowers)
Schoenia filifolia subsp. subulifolia (yellow flowers)
Brachyscome iberidifolia (grey-green leaves and blue-purple soft-petaled flowers)

The horticulturists experimented with germinating a range of daises from seed, and chose those with better seed viability and germination. A range of treatments (dry heat, smoke, none) were used to germinate the seeds.

The proposal for the 2009 – 2010 growing season is to trial direct sowing of the daisies into seed beds with differing densities and sowing dates.

Supplementing the direct sown daisies will be a display of daisies grown from seed in the nursery. There will be fewer plants than in the 2008 – 2009 season, but the plants will be more advanced in size.