I love my daisies, wouldn't be without them -- such a cheerful, happy-looking flower!

Where I am, they bloom starting in early July and last about a month; bloom is finished before fall sets in. Which is a good thing because white looks "off" in an autumnal color palette to my eye, particularly the pristine bright white of daisies.

Full sun is best. They don't seem fussy about soil at all as long as it's well-drained. That said, I couldn't grow daisies at my other house to save my life, to this day I have no clue why -- any idiot can grow a daisy. I just chalk it up to something in the soil they didn't like {shrug}. They grow with abandon where I am now.

Have you thought about perennial ageratum (pale blue) or a light-colored hardy mum for your new bed?

O, I don't mind that, Woody, I just go in with my strimmer and chop the lot. One of the things I really like about the ox-eyes, is the evergreen rosette of foliage. I am on a mission to cover every single square inch of soil with plants because if I don't choose what will occupy the site, weeds will jump into any spare cranny.

I am reviving an earlier attempt with coneflowers but have so far, jus stuck with purpurea. If they are successful, I will indeed expand to grow the paler echies. hank you for the reminder (your gardens are always so serene and restful although I have no luck at all with hydrangeas and many of the lusher plantings. I think I am going for grasses instead of foliage...although not without a degree of trepidation. )because of self-seeding and weeding out the grasses I don't want (,mainly couch and bromes) from the grasses I do want.

An important thing I learned about weedy couchgrass is that the one thing that couchgrass can’t tolerate is constant shade. So I planted large, dense hostas where couchgrass had invaded the garden - no more couchgrass! I know hostas are not very viable in the UK because of slugs but perhaps there is something else that would work for you… ’ No bare ground’ is one of my other gardening philosophies as a means to control weed as it seems like most weed seeds need light to germinate.

Most of my coneflowers are the standard deep pink shades but there are always a few white ones in the mix. The white ones seem to be less persistent. :-(

You might notice I grow no ornamental grass here - too much seeding from them… and when I tried the pretty Japanese forestgrass, Cole (and Misty, our previous dog) thought it was dog-candy and ate it! :-)

I had no luck with Shasta 'Alaska' or any of the other fancier culivers. So I planted Becky which is doing wonderfully. Plus the flowers seem to last longer than on the other shastas I had. As far as deadheading, I just have three plants so not too terrible to keep up with. My balloon flower otoh is a constant deadheading chore.

I have ”Becky” and an earlier blooming daisy - “Daisy May”. Not sure yet about the latter, but Becky for sure needs warm temperatures to reach her full potential. A couple of years ago, we had a very cool start to our summer and Becky was quite the stunted little thing.

RP, I should think Eurybia divaricta (formerly Aster divaricatus) would work for you. A late summer/early fall bloomer, it is tolerant of both dry soils and a fair amount of shade and its tiny, starry white flowers are very fetching. And white is a soothing, calming color to add to the garden at any time of year!

I'm sure it may be dependent on location, but any shasta type daisy is over and done with in my area before the dog days of summer hit and deadheading does little to prolong the bloom season. And they have a unpleasant, pungent aroma I do not care for :-)

I did notice you didn't do grasses, Woody, but tbh, most of them would not look right in your cool, lush foliage garden. They are ...well, meadow and grassland plants and need the wind and sun on their heads...which is a fair description of my allotment - essentially open and sunny. My sheepdog also likes to graze so hakone grasses, panicums and millium are dog salad. Otoh, the stipas and rice grasses are left alone. I have a beautiful oryzopsis which is even lovelier than the maiden grasses and giant oats, but yep, the seeding is a slight worry - I will have to pay some close attention to grasses at the seedling stage.

I do have a few paler hardy mums, mxk3, including a handful of Empress of China. I never really knew what to do with them as pale pink seems such an odd colour at the end of October...but maybe in the new paler beds?

I fail at deadheading - just too many to keep up with so I made a decision to enjoy the first flush of bloom then let it go because I was just getting in a frantic state at the sight of a single sweet pea pod or blown cosmos. I could be persuaded to keep up with dahlias or daisies but not tiny panicles such as coreopsis or centaureas.

When I'm pretty sure my coreopsis is pretty much done, I just grab handfuls of stems and cut. You could probably use a string trimmer to make it even easier.

I grew Shasta daisies a long time ago ...they were short lived here. I got some seeds of Alaska this spring. I ended up with a couple of plants . One is in the ground in a fairly hot, dry spot. It seems like when it was recently in the ground it was prone to wilting, so I had to water it more than some other newly planted plants in that area such as salvia. Now it seems to be better established and not so finicky about water. I'm hoping for blooms next spring.

Yes, you mentioned diviricata, already GG (I had just bought a calico aster) so I did indeed put one on order. I few years ago, I also managed to grow a really late aster - aster pilosum var pringlei (I think). Known as frost aster (by me) because it is SOOO late to bloom. Had forgotten about that one but it did survive the relatively dry woods so may also give that a go.

I vaguely recall dealing with shasta daisies in a customers garden which didn't flower till Sepember. Am I thinking of a different chrysanthemum here (cos there are so many)?.

Whites can be really tricky in an open sunny garden...but maybe with billowy grasses, late flowering umbels, achilleas and clouds of daisies, it might just work. It will certainly be very different to my usual late summer choices. I am also taking some silver-leaved cuttings (convolvulous cneorum, artemisias and caryopteris, to go with my silver leaved buddleja 'Silver Anniversary and various centaureas).

I have all the 'bones' in hand - just needing fillers, so i is fairly thrilling. I am usually fed up by the end of July and have a month or so off until September, when my gardening mojo comes back.

That is exactly what I do, a2zmom. I go straight from admiring the blooms to chopping the whole bunch back with no attempt to stay on top of minuscule floral heads, one at a time. Have a bidens just awaiting this exact treatment.

"I vaguely recall dealing with shasta daisies in a customers garden which didn't flower till Sepember. Am I thinking of a different chrysanthemum here (cos there are so many)?."

Were you thinking of Montauk daisies?

Nipponanthemum nipponicum (Montauk Daisy) | White Flower Farm

Yes, I think you may have been thinking of Montauk daisies as well. Honestly I was a bit confused by the title of your thread at first because my daisies are pretty much done now lol. So perhaps it was Montauk daisises you are thinking of?

Funny you mention pink being an odd color in October. I once posted a thread here about just that - pink in the fall garden. I love pink and purple and so planted a bed of pink mums, purple asters, and callicarpa, among other things. But once it was filling in and in bloom, it just didn't seem quite right in October! Plus, in another part of the garden, my beloved cosmos always seem to be spectacular in the fall - and while I LOVE that, it always seems a bit off to me. Moreso than the pink mums, because IMO cosmos are such an ultimate summer time bloom.

:)

Dee