As I have mentioned before, I often plant things in my garden for fragrance as my husband really enjoys that aspect. Without a doubt, pinks (Dianthus plumarius) is his favorite plant.My windows are open and the heady scent of the pinks, combined with peonies and German or bearded Iris are wafting in.
I read somewhere that pinks, or "clove pinks" gave us the name for the color. Somehow I doubt that, but I do think that the word "pinking" or "pinked edge" does come from the jagged edge which the scissors cut resembling the jagged edge on the flowers.
Clove pinks come in many colors--white through deep red. Not all of them are as fragrant as the old fashioned one which I showed first. Pinks have mat-like foliage which can be quite bluish in color.I think these are neon star.
These doubles were saved from a friend's garden in Connecticut....it was an old garden and we found him rototilling it under to make a vegetable garden one mother's day. I saved them as I am such an addict for old plants.Maybe these deep dark red ones are Neon....or one of the many others....and since it is after midnight, I'm NOT going to go out and read tags. :)
Enjoy, even if you can't smell.
Oh...while everyone says they like good drainage, I've had great luck with them in clay. I grew them in Connecticut which had acidic soil. They did well...but with the alkaline soils of Troy, they absolutely love it.
The whitish thing in the center is a Violet (Mt. Fuji) which seeded itself in the middle.
3 comments:
I can almost smell those dianthus.
I planted lavender for the same reason -- I love the smell. But I'm going to have to go back and read this post again for all these good ideas. Thanks!
Vivien, when I was a child in Michigan (REALLY little, like 3 and under) we lived on the edge of a lake in a beautiful plot, even though the house was too small for our family of 5 (my sister and I shared a bedroom and my brother slept variously in the basement or in the wonderful breezeway during the summer).
There, my mom had a hedge of lavender, which had to have been at least 50 feet long....it was truly wonderful. I've tried to grow lavender both in Connecticut and here, but I can't. The soil is just tooo heavy. Someday I'll have to take a picture of what it looks like when you dig a spade full up here... I tried amending the soil, but I lost them. One thing I've learned is to accept that you can't grow everything everywhere no matter how green your thumb is. So....I use the three strike rule: I'll plant it three times and if it doesn't take, then I admit that it just won't grow here.
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