My only recent experience with dianthus has been "Rockin' Red" (D. barbatus). I picked it up on a whim mid-summer for just a couple bucks and ended up being really impressed. It bloomed its fool head off, and the color was a very vibrant red. Foliage stayed decent through the rest of season (decent in this case meaning not ratty). Surprisingly, DH commented how much he liked it -- and he rarely comments on plants. I don't know about its longevity but heck even if it doesn't survive it's worth a few bucks to treat as an annual (which I do with Rudbeckia "Denver Daisy", incidentally).

My only other experience was way back when something like 20 years ago when I bought some sort of cheddar pink with grayish foliage and light pink blooms. It was meh and I eventually ended up ditching it. Maybe the conditions weren't right or maybe it was a bum cultivar, I don't know.

I started growing Spooky last year. So pretty I'm putting in more this year and adding in another frilly one like it.

I love dianthus. At my old house, I gad a big patch of Bath’s Pink dianthus abd ig was fantastic and super fragrant. Dianthus are generally short lived, but you can keep them going with frequent division. I atarted arctic fire from seed last year and it was super easy. It bloomed sparsely the first year so i am anxious to see what it does this year.

I think many of them origin from spots with poor, well draining soil

and on my loamy soil they were never happy or got old,

untill I found a tiny spot on a sunny slope where it grows mainly in gravel on top of the soil and keeps going 5y plus now

the spot gets so dry in summer that the regular veggie bed weeds do not have a chance

it is a Dianthus gratianopolitanus (had to look up the name, it keeps slipping away... ) and it is very small and flowers white

( I am plannig some roof top perennial planting right now and think I will pop in some Dianthus as the soil or rather substrate will be to their liking, completely forgot about them ;-) )

I had Bath's Pink for years.

I have Fire Witch now (I couldn’d dig the bane outbif my brain last night) and Georgia Peach Pie. My soil is more acidic than they prefer and they don’t love hot and humid summers as a rule (they are generally alpines), but I have sandy, fast draining soil so they are fairly happy and at this time, it is nice ti see the tidy mounds of evergreen foliage.

the picture is dianthus fire witch and lithodora at the top of a rock wall. Dianthus is really happy shoved into crevices.

Georgia Peach Pie is beautiful but I tried for three years and will not survive our area. Dianthus is one of my favorite genera so there are too many to list.

I do wish I knew the name of the old variety of standard blue-green foliage dianthus, I'm assuming it is a gratianopolitanus, that has magenta flowers that flat-out glow in the sun. I have not found it for sale in any garden center and have a little bit surviving in my garden, but the strength of the magenta glow is what sets it apart for me. It's a shorter variety, single flower. Does anybody know what it might be?

Another vote for Firewitch. Beautiful blue foliage and the scent of the flowers is fantastic. They smell like cloves.

YEARS ago I grew some Sweet William (d. barbatus) and really loved it. Such a cheerful little powerhouse. But for some reason I stopped growing it. I've tried growing other dianthus here and there over the years but nothing really impressed me (or should I say I did not grow it very well lol)

Last year I was seduced by photos and descriptions of Chabaud la France and Benigna. I bought seed, and while my germination was good, I didn't have great success with it - although if I'm being honest I could have given it more attention.

Then just yesterday I had an email fromFloret and clicked on a link about growing carnations, and was surprised to see both those above varieties highly recommended for cutting. I don't know why I was so surprised - after all, every single bouquet in the world has at least one carnation in it haha! But those are so long-stemmed and big-bloomed, and my (very limited) experience with "home garden" carnations was so different - all so short and small-bloomed (including those two above). I never really thought of my garden carnations being used in a typical bouquet (only small nosegay bouquets).

So once again, I guess it all comes down to my gardening practices, or lack there of lol. I am so very much a plant-it-and-forget-it gardener, because I don't have enough time to garden, and I guess that catches up with me. Although reading through above I'm wondering if location may have had something to do with my less than stellar results too.

And any dianthus I've grown, I've always treated as an annual.

:)

Dee

I have tried a few dianthus. I've had 'Maiden Pink Brilliancy' that has tiny flowers that I don't really enjoy. Too small to make an impact. I tried a double a few years ago, that looked great until it rained and then the flowers balled up very badly. The only Dianthus that I've stuck with is 'Siberian Blues' it's a medium long stemmed and I started mine from seed given to me in a seed exchange here on GW over a decade ago. Comes back every year. Reseeds nicely, has a long bloom period if you keep deadheading it. Easy to save and share seed.

I love dianthus, I don't have any photos, though dianthus 'Dynasty Rose Lace' is a stunning double dark red rimmed in white, it winters successfully for an outstanding second year display! Annual 'Amazon' (below) these sweet William types just don't stop flowering for the entire season on sturdy plants with nice dark green foliage.

'Amazon Series'

Another favorite is 'Sweetness', a first year flowering short lived perennial with the typical dianthus blooms over blueish foliage and powerful clove scent that wafts on the breeze, plants gently seed themselves around. YES, and I agree with Prariemoon regarding 'Siberian Blues', that unique mauvey blue coloring, vigor and long blooming, one I would not be without!

Now I want to find seed for Siberian Blues.

dianthus as a groundcover...

this is a home in my neighborhood

I always grew small ground-covering dianthus, replacing them with new cuttings every 2-3 years. They do well in my sandy soil (in sun) although they did look a bit straggly if I wasn't attentive. I had a few carnation types for cutting, including an ancient 'Doris' type. Then I started looking at meadow plants, including taller pinks which would hold up in the messy allotment. Sweet Williams (d.barbatus) were a bit over the top but I discovered the slightly feral d.carthusianorum and was smitten. I don't have it in my 'meadow' (which is now an earlier flowering 'grassy mead') but I do have a wild bed with stipa ichu, knautia macedonica, catanache, pink echies, allium sphaeralcephalon, (sp?) flax and eryngiums - the tall, grassy foliage and deep pink florets are very appealing, with added annuals such as ammi majus, vaccaria, nigella and such. Not a plant for a carefully structured bed or border, but in a wilder part of the garden, I love this dianthus (and it's smaller, redder cousins, d.pinifolius and d.cruentus.

Several years ago--at least six--I went to a plant sale at a high school greenhouse and bought one little dianthus. I have no idea what variety it is. Until last fall it had happily grown in an old

wheelbarrow that I turned into a planter. It never had any special care except a little water in

our dry spells. It always looked glorious and filled the wheelbarrow in time. Last fall when the

old wheelbarrow rusted through, I divided it into about a dozen pieces and moved all of it to a slope that I want to beautify. Each little sprig is showing off with blooms already. One of my

all-time best purchases. When Bluestone put on their sale this spring, I had to have more.

I bought three Firewitch plants marked down last year and planted them in a dry spot. The bloomed for a good while and two survived in that spot and are blooming now though they are not much bigger than when I planted them. I like how tough they are.

I've grown Sweet William from seed and found they had a long bloom time also. I like most of the dianthus I see in stores and might try some more. One of my earliest memories is of my mother with a flat of dianthus.