For some, daisies are a pretty ornamental plant, for others a terribly rampant weed in their lawn. What do they really mean?
Munich – Are they belittled or are they weeds that should be controlled in the garden before they spread too much? By and large, this is a matter of opinion. But daisies in the lawn allow at least one clear conclusion: the greenery lacks nutrients.
Daisies in the lawn: weed or ornamental plant?
+Daisies in the lawn – one man's joy, another man's sorrow. (Symbolic image)
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Some love them, others hate them as weeds: daisies bloom with each other from spring to late autumn. Due to their pretty flowers, some even enjoy their breeding form and plant Bellis, also called Tausendschön, in the garden. It is not for nothing that the naturalist Carl von Linné gave the plants the botanical name "Bellis perennis", the enduring beauty.
Daisies are wild herbs and are edible, for example as a decorative addition to salads. Even more than that, daisies are also considered a medicinal plant.
Daisies are also helpful in other ways, because they are pointer plants: if they appear in the garden, especially in the lawn, this is an indication of an acidic or nutrient-poor soil. Accordingly, you can counteract this with fertilizer.
Fighting daisies: Don't mow the lawn too short!
A disadvantage of the daisies: They spread like a weed "furiously" quickly in the garden and what once resembled an English lawn is a sea of flowers in no time at all. And anyone who thinks that frequent mowing of the lawn will kill off plants is mistaken. On the contrary, daisies are robust and react to the shortening of the lawn by eliminating their higher-growing competition, which needs more time to grow back, due to their flat growth.
Here's what you can do about daisies:
- Weeding plants before flowering so that they do not sow. The best way to do this is with a weeder.
- Regular scarification of the lawn will prevent daisies.
- Don't mow the lawn too short: With a length of six centimetres, the grasses have more chance of holding their own against the daisy.
- Fertilizing the lawn with calcium cyanamide can help.
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