Back Home

Craigslister: I am again overwhelmed by Shasta Daisies (tall ones this time) and have a few more raspberry plants poking their heads above the soil for any takers. Shovel provided. 

A quadruple hybrid, Luther Burbank developed the Shasta daisy at his garden in Santa Rosa, California by cross-pollinating an oxeye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and an English field daisy (Leucanthemum maximum), pollinating these hybrids with the Portuguese field daisy (Leucanthemum lacustre), and finally pollinating these seedlings with the Japanese field daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum).

As the Shasta Daisy originated just a few miles from my garden over 100 years ago, it seemed only right that I should have some on hand. It also seemed to me that if it was worth

Luther Burbank's while to spend 17 years hybridizing these flowers, I could surely spare 45 minutes of my time to save some of the offspring from the compost heap and bring them back a little closer to their ancestral home.

I missed out on an early spring offering from this same Craigslister, but lucked out in mid-summer, and spent my lunch hour one day in a small, wild garden jam-packed with Shasta Daisies, Scabiosas, Veronica, and cats.

Three (of many) Shasta Daisy plants were crowding the garden walkway and were slated for removal. The biggest of the three had dozens of tightly packed, three foot long stems running parallel to the ground, blossoms craning their necks to reach the sun. The victim of a horrible garden accident? A feeble attempt to deal with the lanky stems in preparation for removal? Nope. This was the result of a long and loving exercise in horticultural remodeling begun several months prior to my visit. Instead of standing tall like the others in the garden, this particular plant had itself taken the shape of an oversized blossom: seven feet across, horizontal stems radiating from the center, and a shallow central cup just over a foot across, the perfect size to cradle a cat dozing in the sun.