Growing Carnation

Carnations are suitable for bed planting, borders, rock gardens or even for pots. These are available in many hues and colors like red, crimson, orange, lavender, lemon, pink, cherry, white, cream etc. Besides, some commercial growers dye the white blooms to get tinted flowers. There are single and double blooms in various combinations and also stripes. Another eyecatching characteristic of carnations is the frilled edges of some varieties.

The plants are propagated through cuttings taken from the terminal growth. Four to six inches long cuttings are taken and the basal leaves of at least two to three nodes are removed. The cuttings are then inserted in pure sand. The lower leaves must not touch the surface. Cuttings become ready for transplanting in 25 to 30 days.

Carnations can also be grown from seed. There are hundreds of varieties of carnation. Choose varieties with a fairly strong scent. Some of the hybrid varieties have lost their scent during the genetic changes. Growing carnations in your back yard or garden will be a pleasure...

Carnations like full sun but some varieties will tolerate a little shade. Soil should be well-drained, so your rock garden would be a good position for some of the shorter types.

Planting carnations:

Start your carnations off by sowing seed or buy ready made baby plants from your garden centre.

Give plants about 10-12 inches of growing space. Carnations and pinks grow well as edging or borders round larger beds.


Growing carnations - and caring for them:

Soil and irrigation are very important aspects of growing carnations. On these two factors rests the quality of bloom. The soil, as for other winter annuals, should be deep friable and sandy loam. The carnations do not take to heavy soils or water-logging.

A soil rich in manure or ‘well-fed with nitrogen’ is not suited to the carnation. It may cause heavy vegetative growth, fewer blooms or even lead to the splitting of the calyx (green cup-like structure that holds the petals). The manure is to be mixed deep into the soil and at no time mulching (dressing) is to be done with the manure. At the time of preparation of soil, superphosphate and muriate of potash are added at 100 gram and 20 gram, respectively, per square metre of bed area. CAN at 50 gram per square metre is applied while preparing the bed and a similar dose a month later.

Slugs tend to like carnations. They have a very soft foliage making the new plants a great meal for slugs and snails. Gravel helps this problem and well-drained soil.

An old gardener's trick is to put a bowl full of beer buried almost up to the rim near your plants. Slugs apparantly prefer the taste of beer to flowers. Broken egg shells also help deter slugs.

Cut flower heads off when they die and the plant should produce more and more blooms.