These are based on a biology experiment most school teachers use to demonstrate how circulation works. They take white daisies, cut the stems and immediately put them into a vial of food color or vegetable dye. The flower sucks up the liquid and it gets distributed throughout the petals. If you take your crazy daisies and put them into a clear vase of water, the water will turn brown because there is so much dye in them. If you change-out the water too often, they will sometimes lose their color and begin to turn white again. They look pretty, but they typically wilt faster than plain white ones will.

Oh you poor darling! How do you control yourself? I would be a screaming banshee if i had done all that work to have it all dragged out to cook in the yard. You must be a saint or something! LOL :-)---Im glad you like the sock idea. I have two dogs and both get the sock method. My oldest is a three year old Shepard mix we adopted from a shelter, her name is Mary. She will practically bring the sock to me and she always wants to go first because they get many many goodies afterward. Bribes always work :-)----Then Tigger is our little black and white boy mini schnauzer and he used to eat us up when we first got him. He just turned one in may. He did not trust us at first and if we touched him or tried to hold him he would bite us! Thank God thats over with and he is our little Velcro dogie now. Always hanging on somebody wanting to be petted. He still gets upset about getting his nails clipped but he wants the treats soooooo bad, so he is much nicer and no biting anymore just growling but thank goodness for the sock. I use an old stretched out one that the elastic is soft so as not to hurt our babies just paralyze them. HaHa Then with Mary i drape a small blankie or towel over her legs so as not to kick my eyes out because i trim them on their backs. It takes about five minutes per dog and then we have a big treat party about three treats per dog and everybody gets a new rawhide chewy afterward to go take their anxiety out on. And i keep my skin and eyes intact :) The only problem i have with Tigger now is when we go out for a potty break he tries to catch baby birds and he bite a baby robin this year and killed it. I cried. I had no idea the little bird was even in there but he knew right away and just grabbed it and shook it. It was over in an instant. I put a muzzle on him now when we go out because i dont want that to happen again. Glad Daisy doesn't hurt them thats really good just gives them a slobber bath :-) Sorry i talked your head off, I better go---------bonnie

That must be how the did it. They don't look like gerber daisy or any others that I've found...exactly like white daisies that are dyed vibrant colors. I was so excited because they match the shower curtain that I just put up in the bathroom! lol They were just beautiful! I was hoping to grow them looking like that. Oh well... back to the seed catalogs! Thanks for the info! LC Grace

I've heard of it, all right, but not seen it. I did some on-line research after your post, and I'm not sold on CD having that. Every site I read mentions a few other symptoms, such as yellowing leaves with green veins, reddish colored leaves, twisted petals - the normal blooming flowers DO have twisted petals, but they are supposed to in this variety, tiny twisted leaf-like clusters coming out of the flowers,stunted growth, among other things. My plant has none of these, just healthy looking centers with no petals on some of the flower heads. I'm sixty this year and have seen a lot of weird things through my years of gardening. One year, I bought some echinacea seeds on ebay that were opened pollinated varieties of the some of the early-newer varieties being introduced. Art's Pride was one, and there were others that I never see mentioned or sold anymore. A friend who has a green house started them for me and gave back the seedlings, which I potted up. When they bloomed, there were some really odd looking flowers. I had some with centers and no petals, some with tightly quilled petals that never opened up - I know, they sell one like this now!, and some with teeny tiny petals around a large center. I figured that the genetics of these echies were causing the different looking flowers. The brother of another gardening friend took them and has been growing them now. I've not talked to him in a while, and I wonder if he is still growing them. Anyway, this is the first time I've seen a healthy looking Shasta Daisy put out normal flowers and flowers with normal looking centers with no petals. I guess I was wondering if there could be a genetic issue here too. If it is indeed Aster Yellows, I'd like to be sure, and I'd then destroy the plant. I have no problem doing that.