Where have all the daisies gone?

The tiny flower symbolises simpler, freer times to Tony Milne of Rough Milne Mitchell Landscape Architects.

Bellis perennis, a nuisance for those who rely on pasture for a living and for those seeking the perfect lawn.

But for my colleague, Nikki, it’s a friendly marker of summer, the abundance of which she is missing.

You may be familiar with Bellis perennis, the common daisy. Our family is, as it seems to thrive in our lawn, although I am slightly embellishing our patch of grass by referring to it as lawn. A rosette of daintiness, which heralds the arrival of dawn by opening its little white petals to reveal a cheery yellow head. At day’s end, its petals close, rescinding to the night.

Personally, I don’t mind a daisy or two in my lawn. Entrenched amongst the browntop, fescue and rye, not only does it contribute to the diversity of our sward, it is also edible. Try adding its leaves, high in iron and vitamin K, and flowers to a salad or using its flowers in tea. A forager’s dream.

Nikki was lamenting the seeming paucity, relative to her childhood, of little Bellis growing within the grass berms, parks and open spaces of Otautahi Christchurch today. Recalling with fondness her childhood days of making daisy chains and, I imagine, hunting for four-leaf clover, too. The joy in the discovery, and the simplicity of it.

Not unlike sliding down a hill with bottoms on cardboard or running side by side down sand dunes playing a game we called stockies, with the aim being to knock each other over. These were the days of summer camping, games played hour after hour, often only ending through exhaustion, sometimes tears, or the call that tea was ready in the camp compound we’d created with the families we holidayed with. At the time we thought this was the best play.

Often the best play is the explorative and imaginative play. Perhaps daisy chains are still made, and that is why Nikki can’t find them growing anywhere. They have all been picked. While too simple an answer, it would be quite joyous to think. Through research we do know, though, that physically and cognitively, play is vital for the development of our children. There is no doubt about this.

Obviously, our environment as a stimulus, plays an important role for play, too. Over the past few years, children’s play has been elevated to multi-sensory designed environments. Destination playgrounds, coffee too. This is fantastic, but let us not forget the humble Bellis perennis.

The more we can encourage play through discovery and made-up games, and the more we let our children run through the long grass, graze their knees and learn to tie knots, the better.

Let’s foster that, one daisy chain at a time.

03 366 3268 | rmmla.co.nz