Can there be any happier flower than a daisy flower? 

There is just something about them that makes you smile and want to start humming a tune. They can brighten any summer garden. 

Whether it is the large, sunny-coloured gerbera daisies in a container or some coneflower or rudbeckias in a mixed border, their simplicity and bold colours demand your attention as soon as you enter the garden. 

The significance of the daisy flowers goes way back in history.

Daisy flowers hold a rich tapestry of meanings in the language of flowers. They symbolize new beginnings and rebirth, embodying love, cheerfulness and beauty. 

Like the aster flower, the daisy is associated with innocence, purity, and hope. With their radiant appearance, daisies remain a cherished emblem of joy, hope, and the enduring beauty of simplicity.

Snowy-white daisies represent purity and innocence. Yellow daisies are strongly associated with cheerfulness, friendship, joy and wishing someone well. Like other pink flowers, pink daisies symbolize gentle admiration, affection or adoration.

Now, if you dream of daisies (and who doesn’t), they can represent a need for simplicity and frugality, as well as the ability to remain grounded and humble.

Furthermore, daisy flowers in dreams can also signify a sense of joy and happiness. They may represent a time of celebration or a reminder to appreciate the simple pleasures in life.

Let’s look at a few perennial plants that have a summer show of daisy type flowers:

Shasta daisies (Leucanthemum):

Shastas have long been a favourite of many gardeners. Their pure white petals with bright yellow centres always look cheery in the garden. 

Over the years, they have continued making improvements to this classic by creating varieties with stronger stems, larger flowers or that bloom longer.

There are also snow short growing cultivars such as snowcap’ that only grows about ten inches tall and repeats bloom.

Shasta need full sun in order to perform well.

Coneflowers (Echinacaea):

Coneflowers are one of the many native perennials to this area. They are also one of the genera of perennials that have numerous new varieties being released every year. 

Just when you think that there cannot possibly be something different they can do, they prove you wrong. 

With flower colours ranging from pure white, lime green, yellow, soft orange, bright orange, mango, pink, purple, fuchsia and on and on. 

Whatever your preferred colour palette for your garden, you will be able to find it in a coneflower. 

I love to blend different shades together in a grouping, such as a light orange variety with a burnt orange colour and the lime green colour. It makes for a very fresh look in the summer garden. 

A great companion plant would be something with a lemon/lime-coloured leaf, like lime coralbells or Chardonnay pearls deutzia. 

With coneflowers, you also get a variety of heights to choose from. 

Some varieties will grow less than a foot high while other varieties can grow three to four feet high.

Coneflowers are great at attracting pollinators including bees, a variety of butterflies and many other insects.

Please note that the single petal varieties are more attractive to pollinators than the different double flowering cultivars. 

Coneflowers prefer a location with full sun (at least five to six hours) and in soil that drains well.

Sneezeweed (Helenium):

Sneezeweed (also known as Helen flower) is another native perennial that is not as well known. 

Its name is probably some of the problem, as people think that it makes you sneeze, but sneezeweed is so named because they used to dry the leaves to make snuff. 

Its genus name, Helenium, is an homage to Helen of Troy.

Helenium is a mid-to-late season bloomer that adds a splash of warm colours to the garden. 

There are several cultivars available at garden centres ranging from yellow to orange to red flowers or a combination of those colours. 

They are available in taller growing varieties as well as dwarf ones.

Blanket flower (Gaillardia):

Blanket flower is yet another native perennial that enjoys full sun and sandy soil. 

They begin blooming late May and continue to bloom throughout the summer and into the fall.

Blanket flowers are easy to grow with richly coloured, daisy-like flowers.

The plant forms a slowly spreading mound, and the common name may be a reference to how they can slowly spread and “blanket” an area. 

There are many cultivars available to choose ranging in colour from yellows, oranges, reds and rusts. 

Many of them their petals are lighter in colour at the outer edge of the petals and deepening in colour towards the centre of the flower.

Other sun-loving perennial plants with daisy-like flowers are black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), prairie coneflower (Ratibida) and false sunflower (Heliopsis) — all native varieties and great for attracting pollinators. 

Joanne Young is a Niagara-on-the-Lake garden expert and coach. See her website at joanneyoung.ca.