Leucanthemum x superbum Seeds | Shasta Daisy

Large white shasta daisy heads with golden centres above dark green leaves — Shasta Daisy (*Leucanthemum x superbum*): Asteraceae, a garden hybrid raised by Luther Burbank in the 1890s.

LATIN NAME: Leucanthemum x superbum

COMMON NAME: Shasta Daisy

Plant Profile

The Shasta daisy is a clump-forming perennial of the daisy family, raised in California in the 1890s by Luther Burbank and named after Mount Shasta. It grows sixty to ninety centimetres, with dark green, spoon-shaped basal leaves and large heads of pure white rays around a golden disc, opening from June to September.

The heads are five to eight centimetres across, larger than those of the wild oxeye daisy, and they are carried on stiff stems that hold them upright in wind and rain. The plant is a hybrid of several Leucanthemum species, and it is largely sterile, so it does not seed about like its wild relatives. It forms a dense crown that can be divided every few years.

Science & Biotechnology

Burbank’s cross combined Leucanthemum lacustre, a Portuguese species, with Leucanthemum maximum from the Pyrenees, and later work brought in the common oxeye daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare. The result is a complex hybrid with a chromosome number that varies between cultivars, and many of the named forms are propagated only by division because they do not breed true from seed.

The double and semi-double cultivars have lost most of their fertile florets, and with them much of their nectar, so the single-flowered forms are the better garden plants for insects. Breeding since the 1990s has concentrated on compact habit and on repeat flowering, producing cultivars such as Becky, which flowers again in autumn if it is cut back after the first flush.

Uses & Benefits

It is one of the great cut flowers of the summer border, lasting a week in water, and it is also a reliable plant for a white border, a cottage garden or the middle of a mixed bed. The single forms are visited by bees, hoverflies and small beetles, and the seed heads feed finches in autumn if they are left standing.

In a garden it is best used in bold groups rather than as single plants, since the flower heads are heavy and the clumps look better in mass. It also works well at the edge of a meadow or against a dark hedge, where the white carries across the garden. It is not a plant for deep shade or for waterlogged ground, and it will rot in a wet winter.

Growing from Seed

Sow in late winter or early spring on the surface of a light compost at 18-20 °C, and cover very lightly; the seed needs light to germinate. Seedlings appear in two to three weeks. Named cultivars will not come true from seed, so seed is only worth sowing for the species or for a mixed strain.

Plant out in full sun in any well-drained soil, and water through the first summer. Cut the plants back after the first flowering to encourage a second flush in early autumn, and divide the clumps every two or three years in spring, discarding the woody centre and replanting the outer shoots. Tall cultivars need staking in an exposed site.

Our Take

The big white daisy of the summer border, raised by Burbank and still unbeaten for cutting. Plant it in groups, cut it back, and divide it every few years.

Flower Seeds