Cultivation
Dianthus species have been extensively bred and hybridised to produce many thousands of cultivars for garden use and floristry, in all shades of white, pink, yellow and red, with a huge variety of flower shapes and markings. They are often divided into the following main groups:-
- Border carnations - fully hardy, growing to 60 cm (24 in), large blooms
- Perpetual flowering carnations - grown under glass, flowering throughout the year, often used for exhibition purposes, growing to 150 cm (59 in)
- Malmaison carnations - derived from the variety 'Souvenir de la Malmaison', growing to 70 cm (28 in), grown for their intense "clove" fragrance
- Old-fashioned pinks - older varieties; evergreen perennials forming mounds of blue-green foliage with masses of flowers in summer, growing to 45 cm (18 in)
- Modern pinks - newer varieties, growing to 45 cm (18 in), often blooming two or three times per year
- Alpine pinks - mat-forming perennials, suitable for the rockery or alpine garden, growing to 10 cm (4 in)
Over 100 varieties have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
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Famous quotes containing the word cultivation:
“Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Let these memorials of built stone music’s
enduring instrument, of many centuries of
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—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)