push up daisies, to

Be dead and buried, as in There is a cemetery full of heroes pushing up daisies. This slangy expression, alluding to flowers growing over a grave, was first recorded about 1918, in one of Wilfred Owen's poems about World War I.

To be dead and buried: a cemetery of heroes pushing up daisies.

Be dead and buried. The phrase was first recorded in 1918, in one of Wilfred Owen’s poems about World War I, and alludes to flowers growing over a soldier’s grave in France. It soon passed into the civilian vocabulary, where it continues to refer to being dead. Georgette Heyer had it in Blunt Instrument (1938): “‘Where is the wife now?’ . . . ‘Pushing up daisies. . . . died a couple of years ago.’”