Engelmann’s Daisy Is a Tough and Pretty Native Plant
Virtues: We love Engelmann’s daisy (Engelmannia peristenia) for its yellow flowers and gray foliage. This yellow summer bloomer is a roadside wildflower native to the southern Great Plains. Its seeds…
Virtues: We love Engelmann's daisy (Engelmannia peristenia) for its yellow flowers and gray foliage. This yellow summer bloomer is a roadside wildflower native to the southern Great Plains. Its seeds feed wild birds. Engelmann's daisy is being honored as a durable garden-worthy perennial by Colorado's PlantSelect program in 2015.
Common name: Engelmann's daisy
Botanical name:Engelmannia peristenia
Flowers: Bright yellow daisy flowers cover the plant for much of the summer. The daisies are held in clusters of several individual flowers at the ends of the perennial plant's stems.
Foliage: Long, narrow, deeply toothed gray-green leaves are held thickest at the base of Engelmann's daisy, forming a clump shape that can remain present through the winter.
Habit: Perennial to two feet tall and wide, with a rounded shape created by its many branched flowering stems.
Season: Summer, for flowers.
Origin: Open fields and roadsides of southern Colorado and the southern Great Plains of the United States, south through Texas and New Mexico.
How to grow Engelmann's daisy: This native perennial is highly drought tolerant and stands up well to heat. It has a deep taproot that helps it find water in dry times. Engelmann's daisy prefers full sun. Mixes well in the garden or a naturalistic meadow planting. If the plant loses vigor in summer, it can be cut back hard to refresh its growth and flowering. USDA Zones 5–10.
Image courtesy of PlantSelect.
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Learn about other native plants and prairie wildflowers and how to combine them into a beautiful but easy-care garden with Roy Diblik's The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden.
Get some great inspiration for creating beautiful combinations using Engelmann's daisy and other flowering perennials with Bloom's Best Perennials and Grasses.
Daisy-type flowers are excellent at drawing beneficial insects to your garden. Learn other plants and techniques for this purpose in Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden by Jessica Walliser.
