The Modest Daisy.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20329, 12 June 1934, Page 9

The Modest Daisy.

A Garden Corner

THE COMMON 7 weed daisy of our lawns is a native of Britain and the ancestor of the modern- Beilis monstrosa, the 'giant double white and red daisies that are popular for earlv summer bedding. It was the wild daisy that Robert Burns, when ploughing in 1786, commemorates in his expressive way: Wee modest crimson tippet flower. That met me in an evil hour. For I maun crush axwang the stoure. Thy slender stem. To spare thee now is past my power. My bonnie gem. We have not much time for this gowan, as he might have called it, and look upon daisies in the grass as something of a nuisance. But a bed or border of a good strain of hybrid Beilis —and means pretty—is a ravishing sight. They must, however, be broken up or resown annually, otherwise they will quickly deteriorate until little better than the daisy of the fields. T. D. LENNIE.