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BY JEAN STARR
Times Correspondent | Thursday, February 23, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
They're perkier than Pollyanna, as unpretentious as Forrest Gump, and more colorful than a crayon drawing. I'm talking about daisies and all of their kin. Whether they're yellow with red centers or pink with brown centers, what we generally call daisies are all part of the Aster family.
One element shared by many flowers in this family is possession of both ray and disc florets. Picture a sunflower: Its outer perimeter is composed of florets with long strap-like petals, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petals, or ray florets. If you look very closely at the center portion of the flower, you'll find a mound of minuscule flowers with tubular corollas, called disc florets. Just two of the most obvious daisy-like flowers found at garden centers are Coreopsis and Echinacea.
Plant developers are working with threadleaf (verticillata) coreopsis in order to duplicate the success of the cultivar, Moonbeam, an extremely vigorous award winner. A purportedly hardy new threadleaf cultivar called Autumn Blush has pale gold petals that are deep crimson near the central disc. I planted one in my garden last spring and am looking forward to it growing well for me in a hot spot in full sun.
Coreopsis lanceolata (lanceleaf) and grandiflora are clump-forming plants whose hybrid cultivars have lush foliage and bear golden-yellow to yellow-orange flowers for most of the summer. For both, division is recommended every three years. After they become mature, or if they are over fertilized they tend to flop. That is the reason for cultivars of lanceolata like Baby Sun, developed for compact growth. Still, whether you are growing the species or a cultivar, it won't last long in a garden with overly moist soil, especially over the winter.
In the world of hybrid Echinacea, or coneflower, color is king. Sundown, Harvest Moon, Sunset, Sunrise and Twilight are just a few of the fragrant and newly orangey, golden, deeper reddish hues that have charmed many a dollar from gardeners' wallets. Newcomers are usually expensive. If you want to be the first on your block to have the latest, you must pay the price.
There are many other Echinacea that haven't crossed the color line and still look like purple coneflowers. Most have petals that stand out more horizontally than the species and stems that don't flop. A few of the newer cultivars are Bright Star, Fancy Frills, Hope, Kim's Knee High, Ruby Giant and Ruby Star. Sales of Hope will benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. According to suppliers, 25 cents from each cultivar of Hope sold will go to the foundation.
My checkered past with some of the newer Echinacea cultivars prevents me from making recommendations, but I've heard some very good things on the Garden Web Forum. I'll let you know which ones in my garden look the most promising in a couple of months.
The opinions expressed solely are those of the writer. She can be reached at jeanstarr@comcast.net.
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