Choosing Carnations
Many gardeners consider the Grenadin hybrids to be the hardiest, although if you follow the above directions in growing and winter protection, you could also grow other types.
Then there are the Chabauds, which are becomming harder to find. These grow quite tall, making them good for growing as cutflowers, but they are very difficult to keep staked upright for the same reason. If you want a sturdy garden plant, I would avoid these, even though the fragrances are often excellent and the fringed petals are very pretty.
In many garden stores and at garden club sales across the country, you will find carnations for sale under many names. At the bottom of this article I have added a list of companies offering mailorder seeds on the internet. To help you choose, here is a list of a few varieties, which hybrid group they belong to, as well as a few more details...
- 'Cardinal' (Grenadin hybrid) - Bright scarlet flowers
- 'Giant Chabaud' - Fringed and double flowers in a wide range of colours
- 'Golden Sun' (Grenadin hybrid) - Yellow flowers
- 'Innocence' (Grenadin hybrid)- White flowers
- 'King of the Blacks' (Grenadin hybrid) - Actually this is just very dark red but is so dark the petals are seen as velevety black.
- 'Lillipot' - Dwarf plants bearing small flowers on plants 8- to 10-inches tall. Fragrant plants suitable for growing in containers.
- 'Peach Delight' - Peach pink blooms on sturdy stems
- 'Red Riding Hood' - Cherry-red flowers.
- 'Triumph Rose' (Grenadin hybrid) - Pink flowers.
- 'White Gold' (Grenadin hybrid) - Light golden yellow flowers on strong stems
If you want a very fragrant, hardy garden perennial, you might want to try plain old Dianthus caryophyllus, the wild Clove Pink, or Gillyflower. It is the parent of all the above hybrids, their wild form, and it grows from 12 to 3 feet high. The plants have blue-green foliage and fragrant, semi-double rosy-purple or white flowers, blooming at cool times of the year but mainly in Fall and early Winter.
Supporting Tall Carnations
Obviously, you need to know ahead how tall each variety will grow in order to provide the right kind of support. The support should be set in place soon after planting, or as the plants emerge from the ground in the spring, so the stems will remain upright. If only a few plants are grown in a bed or pots, there are several ways to support them.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Jojo Sigurgeirson's Perennials topic, please visit the Discussions page.