PlantFiles: English Daisy, Lawn Daisy, Bruisewort
Bellis perennis

From your friends at Botanical Interests, inc.: English Daisy Pomponette Blend has "cute as a button" 2"-wide pompom flowers in shades of red, pink, and white with yellow centers held above the foliage on 3"-6" stems. Perennial in zones 4-8, they are the perfect addition to the spring garden. Plant them in containers, along borders, or use them as a bulb cover. In coastal climates, these perky little flowers may continually bloom. Though they do best in full sun in most climates, they prefer light shade in warm, inland summer areas.

Just last spring I was complaining that my English Daisies I'd planted the year before didn't make it through the winter. Today, I'm sitting here in shock because today, January 12th, I've got not one, but THREE blooms on some that I grew from seed this year. Amazing. Just amazing. We've had below zero weather and two major snowstorms already this winter, so you'd have thought that would have been enough to at least kill it off to ground level. HA! These are some really tough plants!

This daisy does well in my zone 5 garden. It comes back even after a tough winter.

Lawn Daisy is a lawn weed, but it looks very pretty in the lawn and stays low growing. It is not much a problem in the lawn, however, it maybe hard to get rid of. I once thought about adding some to my lawn for color, but decided against it.

If you go a nursery you can buy a number of types that are not the same as the invasive lawn weed. These types will be non invasive. I have planted both the white nursery variety and the red. They perform well but don't like to be over watered.

If you want have the lawn weed variety you have to transplant one from a lawn or you can find the seeds online if you look very hard. When you mow the lawn the flowers will be cut off, but they will grow right back.

The double varieties do not reseed invasively. Often they do not re-seed at all.

Bellis is a wonderfully compact plant that seems to bloom all summer. It self-seeds readily, so be prepared to thin your beds or keep bellis in an area where it may spread freely.

The backside of the flower petals are often deep pink, but the top of the petal is generally lighter. There are several new cultivars with intense shades and double petals.

Familiar to children as a favourite flower for picking, and the raw material for daisy-chains, this plant is also known to gardeners as a pernicious weed that is almost impossible to eradicate from lawns. The flower heads, carried singly above a rosette of leaves, close at night or in dull weather and provide the origin of the common name ('day's eye').

Neat, compact growth with tubular pink and white petals; good cut flower. Grown as a cool-season annual.