I also am in 6b, and despite the transplanting and cool weather (in the east), I think you should step up nitrogen asap to until you get better green leaf color. Last week I doused mine with a homemade liquid fertilizer, the last feeding they will get. They are loaded with buds, ready for summer.

I have several different varieties of dianthus...my perennial ones put on quite a show early this spring, then kinda went blah when temps in the 90's rolled around. I cut them back all the way to the foliage in mid-June and now they are reblooming. As far as my annual varieties, I just deadhead continuously and they finally let me know when they've had enough...that's when I leave enough of the dead flowers on it to collect seed for later. ...but I'll pass on the beer! :-) Good Luck! Amber

Hi: You should get a notice in your email that I posted this here. It is called 'Lady Margaret', it is usually at Lowes/HomeDepot, in a 3 gallon and 1 gallon pot. I just saw it online at 'almosteden.com', an online plant nursery, for $12.99 plus shipping. And it lists other places to buy it. WalMart included. Don't know the sizes, you need to check that. It grows very fast, the vine is thin and wiry. I would think you could pot it up into a BIG pot, like a 5 gallon bucket?, and put a trellis behind it, and it would grow like up it like a weed. It flowers all year for me. IF Pensacola gets freezing temps, yes you would have to cut it back, and protect the roots, and try to keep some stems alive, till spring. But mine has lived for 5 years now, through temps. of the high 30's, low 40's. But only for like 5 days. Past that, I dont know how long it can handle low temps. Hope this helps.

Olivia - water can move through sand fairly quickly, giving growers the illusion that it drains well. Drainage isn't a function of how fast water moves through soil, it's a function of how much water remains IN the soil when it's just stopped draining after a thorough watering. In many cases, sand is co fine, the bottom several inches of the soil is 100% saturated with perched water after the force of gravity has done all it can to drain water from the pot, so I would suggest you not assume your soil drains well. Since oedema symptoms are conspicuous on the foliage, it's almost a certainty that soil compaction and/or chronically high levels of water in the medium are in play. If you find mites, they can be subdued by spritzing at 4 day intervals with mixture of 2 parts of distilled water to 1 part of 70% rubbing alcohol. Not all pubescent (fuzzy - with fine hairs) foliage tolerates alcohol well, so try it on a couple of leaves first. To test for mites, put a white piece of paper on a hard surface, then left the pot and set it down on the paper hard enough to jar the plant so the mites are dislodged. They will look like pepper specks moving around against the white background. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al