Swan River Daisies Mixed

Tiny star-shaped daisies of two centimetres or so in mauve, blue, white and pink, above a cloud of fine fern-like grey-green foliage. At peak flowering the daisies cover the leaves completely, so what you get is a low mound of pastel with a misty quality nothing else quite matches.

It comes from Western Australia, and despite looking fragile it is drought-tolerant once established, which makes it far better in a hanging basket than its appearance suggests. There is a subtle sweet scent on a warm day.

Two practical points. The seed is extremely fine, so mix it with a pinch of dry silver sand before sowing, or you cannot see where it has gone and it comes up in clumps. And pinch the growing tip out at 8 or 10cm. That single job is what turns it from a taller thin plant into the bushy mound that fills a container edge to edge. It is half-hardy and cannot go out until late May or June, and slugs go for it in the first fortnight. After that it looks after itself and flowers to October.