Bellis Perennis - a Daisy by any other name

Another bargain buy from the discounted rack in B&Q, there have been some excellent bargains due to the bad spring - and just yards away people where buying plants that looked just the same for full price - always worth hunting out the discounted stock before buying anything else!

The label said it wouldn't expand to much and only grow to about 3-4 inch's high, needing partial to full sun, I planted it at the front of a raised bed that gets about 6-7 hours of sunlight a day in fairly well drained soil - it's done very well flowering constantly for the last couple of months.

On finally reading up about it I discovered that dead-heading is recommended to prolong the flowering, not something I've done to date although it's now starting to look a little past it's best so I'll try this and report back the results.

I've also discovered it's a Biennial - good to know as I intend to harvest as many seeds as possible this year and grow from Seed next year, In typical ignorant fashion I would have been wondering why it wasn't flowering!

The Bellis Perennis is a member of the Daisy Family (Latin: Asteraceae), it's leaves are apparently edible but bitter to the taste; it seems to be really an easy plant to grow and gives masses of flowers without invading the entire border - I may well try this in a pot in future years, I think this will make a good feature in my Patio Table!