Ox eye daisies - madness?

[meloncolic]

We are renovating an old house and garden. Won’t move in until end of year, but doing a lot of renovation of garden (classic 50s/60s garden with acid soil in ireland. Lots of azaleas and rhododendron and escallonia).

We now have a huge bank cleared of conifers and sycamore seedlings and brambles. The soil is a bit of a mess and full of chippings from the stump grinder. I tried some green manure but probably too late.

Would ox-eye daisies planted en masse be a good or a crazy idea? I saw them at a hip hotel with a very orchardy vibe and loved it.

Or will they just become invasive?

We don’t really have them at roadsides here and I don’t want to be the one to introduce something that plagues everyone! But maybe as we’re further north they wouldn’t do that?

They seed very very freely and seem to out compete most other things in the seed mix I have on a bank.

Did get asked about them by a customer at a garden centre I worked out who was surprised when I then said that the bank of them they were admiring was my house and I felt they were thugs

They’re not invasive at the level of invading other people’s gardens. I have a self seeded patch, and they haven’t spread any further.

Sounds gorgeous. Go for it! They're pretty easy to identify and weed out if they start to spread too far and nothing is ever really that thuggish. (Except crocosmia.)

Excellent!

(We have some crocosmia )

How should I sow the ox eye seeds? Germinate first inside or just scatter?

I have loads in my garden this year, but they were in a seed mixture i scattered randomly in spare beds, they did not get big enough to flower last year but overwintered well and should look good this summer, intermingled with lots of foxgloves.