If you are like many people, you love your plants and want to keep them safe and healthy. To keep deer away from those beautiful plants, then you need help. One way is to use this copper canyons daisy to plant in and around your patio and garden. But first, let’s look at the characteristics of the copper barrel daisy and how it will help keep your plants safe and eventually healthy.
This margarita is also known for the bush lemon marigold, bush marigold, and Mexican bush marigold. The genus and species are Tagetes lemmonii with synonyms for Tagetes alamensis and Tagates palmeri. It is a perennial plant with orange-yellow flowers.
The copper barrel daisy is a flowering shrub that blooms in fall and then early spring. If left alone, it can grow up to 6 feet. tall and expand to over 4 feet. wide (1.2 to 1.8 meters). These daisies are heat loving and drought tolerant, which could be a good project for the beginning gardener in zones 8a through 11.
This daisy that many mistakenly identified as native to Texas is actually native to Arizona, Central America, and Mexico. the plant blooms only when the days are shortened enough to start the flowering reaction in the plant, which is 4-5 hours of sun and light shade the rest of the time. It is what is normally called a short-day plant.
As a person might anticipate from its natural environment, this marigold shrub is drought tolerant, thrives on thin soils, and is usually a rough plant. Once it grows in the garden, it is low in water and without fertilizer. It is very good for xeriscape landscaping due to its drought tolerance ability. An added merit is the strong aroma of the foliage; keep those deer away.
It has proven to be a significant perennial color for deer resistant gardens. When deer have changed their grazing standards due to drought and overcrowding, there are no reports of them eating the daisy. Use the copper barrel daisy as a companion plant to other susceptible plants that may be attractive to deer. This plant will provide protection to all who dare to grow nearby.
The foliage is evergreen and not woody. It is aromatic with an extremely fragrant citrus pine scent, especially when pruned. An allergic problem can arise when pruning.
It is pleasant for butterflies, birds and bees.
Soil pH requirements are alkaline. So when spreading keep the ground around 7.5 – 8.5. So the most widely used propagation methods are faster and more fully rooted cuttings than stem cuttings, herbaceous stem cuttings, and softwood cuttings. If you use seed collection, allow the seed pods or heads to dry to the bones in the plants and then collect the seeds.
