I was walking through our Demonstration Garden at 25550 Harbor View Road in Port Charlotte awhile back and found a relatively new planting of sea oxeye daisy, Borrichia frutescens. This beautiful native flowering perennial plant is chock full of beneficial characteristics such as salt and drought tolerance. But is its attractiveness – a stunning gray-green foliage and bright yellow flowers – that make this member of the Aster Family a real keeper.
While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, some native plants do not have the eye appeal of their more exotic cousins. The sea oxeye daisy breaks that mold with color, sustainability, and function. The sea oxeye daisy is normally found in coastal areas within saltwater wetlands and areas associated with mangroves. Being a halophyte – a salt-tolerant plant – sea oxeyes can even tolerate occasional brackish or saltwater flooding. Sea oxeye daisy also nicely adapts to your average landscape as long as it is in full sun. This perennial daisy grows up to three foot tall and three foot wide with two-to-three-inch, somewhat succulent, gray-green leaves giving it a dusty miller appearance. The leaves have this silvery sheen due to shorty downy hairs. Underground rhizomes – noted as being somewhat aggressive – help this plant form larger colonies as it spreads in the landscape. Useful in rock gardens, as a groundcover – spacing plants about thirty-six inches apart – and even short hedges, sea oxeye daisies are versatile in many settings. The one-inch yellow flowers can be present almost year-round and are favored by all types of pollinators.
Sea oxeye daisies are normally only available at area native nurseries and even online. Once established, you can propagate this perennial by rooting cuttings and seeds.
Just as sidenote, there is a companion species that offers a different color foliage choice that can be mixed and matched – the green sea oxeye daisy. This plant – Borrichia arborescens – is more compact and spreads less than the silver oxeye, but otherwise has the same nice yellow flowers.
Sea oxeye daisies are an ornamental native that can be appreciated by both the native plant lover and exotic horticulturalist fanciers alike. The attractive foliage and bright yellow flowers combine to bring appeal to the eye and sustainability to the landscape. Sea oxeye is a good choice with all the attributes of a more commonly cultivated non-native plant in a native package – in other words, it will fit your landscape, satisfy your need for native plants, and still have passersby asking for a cutting! For more information on all types of hardy perennial flowering plants – both native or non-native, or to ask a question, you can also call the Master Gardener Volunteer Helpdesk on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 1 to 4 pm at 764-4340 for gardening help and insight into their role as an Extension volunteer. Ralph E. Mitchell is the Director/Horticulture Agent for UF/IFAS Extension – Charlotte County. He can be reached at 941-764-4344 or ralph.mitchell@charlottecountyfl.gov. Connect with us on social media. Like us on Facebook @CharlotteCountyExtension and follow us on Instagram @ifascharco.
Resources:
Gilman, E. F. (1999) Borrichia frutescens. The University of Florida Extension Service, IFAS.
The IRREC Gardens (2024) Borrichia frutescens – the sea oxeye daisy. Indian River Research and Education Center https://irrecenvhort.ifas.ufl.edu/gardentool/plants/Borrichia%20frutescens/ .
Newton. A. R. (2022) Beauty Is in the Eye of the Daisy. Rockledge Gardens.
Bushy seaside oxeye (2016) Florida Wildflower Foundation, Inc. https://www.flawildflowers.org/flower-friday-borrichia-frutescens/ .
Borrichia frutescens (2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borrichia_frutescens#Description .
Meadow Beauty Nursery (2024) Sea Oxeye Daisy – Borrichia frutescense. https://www.meadowbeautynursery.com/sea-oxeye-daisy/ .
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (2024) Borrichia frutescens. https://orders.fairchildgarden.org/products/borrichia-frutescens.
Meadow Beauty Nursery (2024) Landscaping with Florida Native Plants – Green Sea-Oxeye-Daisy – Borrichia arborescens. https://www.meadowbeautynursery.com/green-sea-oxeye-daisy/.
Wikipedia (2024) Borrichia frutescens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borrichia_frutescens
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