The maiden pink 'Dianthus deltoides) has gem-like flowers half an inch across. 

 This plant makes attractive foliage carpets, even on gravel 



The sand pink (D. arenarius). a relative of the Scotch pink which grows four 

 inches high and has white, fringed flowers. Good for walls 



The "Fun' of Collecting Hardy Pinks - By wilheim Miller, 



New 

 York 



"JOVE'S FLOWERS" -A DIVINELY SCENTED GROUP, INCLUDING HARDY CARNATIONS, SWEET WILLIAMS, THOSE 

 LITTLE MASTERS OF SHOWINESS (THE CHINESE PINKS), AND THE PRECIOUS OLD SCOTCH, GRASS, OR GARDEN PINKS 



[Editor's Note. — The " Fun of Collecting " series is designed especially for beginners who would like to become experts in one season. Each article deals with one popular 

 genus containing ioo or more species and varieties — the kind that bewilders the beginner. The obj ct is to give a sense of mastery, not a complete list of too-much-alike varieties.] 



A NYONE who believes in the law of 

 •**■ compensation will find his pet theory 

 beautifully illustrated by the genus Dian- 

 thus. The florist's carnation blooms all 

 winter, but is worthless outdoors. The 

 sweet William has the largest head of 

 flowers, but the seeds must be sown every 

 year. The Chinese pinks will give about 

 as much show for the money as you can 

 ever get from a five-cent packet of seeds, 

 but they are deficient in fragrance. Gar- 

 den pinks bloom only once a year in June, 

 or if "ever blooming" they split the calyx 

 or have some other drawback. The maiden 

 pink is nearly unbeatable for producing 

 great carpets of attractive foliage and 

 dainty little flowers, but like all the pinks 

 it will perish on heavy soil that is damp in 

 winter. Every plant that grows has its 

 limitations (though you may not find them 

 in the catalogues) and it is the purpose of 

 this series to state them unflinchingly, 

 whenever we know what they are. Gar- 

 den pinks are not as long-lived as trees; 

 you have to divide them every two or 

 three years. Many of the kinds are said 

 to bloom all summer, but I have not 

 found it so. Some look seedy unless 

 you keep the flowers picked. And all of 

 them demand light soil and good drainage. 

 But as long as the human race survives 

 people will love and grow the hardy pinks, 

 because of their clove-like fragrance and 

 gay colors. Moreover, they have peculiar 

 value for America, because our summers 

 are hot and dry, and through myriads of 

 years nature had been adapting the species 

 of Dianthus to arid regions, so that some 

 of them will blossom in the dust, pour forth 



their fragrance amid the poorest gravels, 

 and sow their own seeds on bare rocks 

 wherever there is a chink or a pinch of 

 soil. What is more refreshing on a hot 

 day than a sheet of single white pinks, 

 cool and spicy? Who has found a better 

 flower for edging garden paths — so charm- 

 ing in bloom and so attractive all the year, 

 especially in winter? And now that better 

 taste in flower beds is beginning to reject 

 the atrocious coleus and its gaudy tropical 

 crew, what plants are more valuable for 

 hardy bedding than the garden pinks? 



HARDY CARNATIONS 



Next to the rose, the carnation is prob- 

 ably dearest to the heart of humanity, 

 and indeed it gives more for the money. 

 The carnation has the largest individual 

 flower in the genus Dianthus, John Thorpe's 

 ideal of a four-inch double flower having 

 lately been realized. No other flower has 

 had so great a transformation. The origi- 

 nal carnation was a short-stemmed flower 

 blooming for a fortnight in summer; 

 it has been changed into a long-stemmed 

 flower blooming for six months or more 

 and especially in winter. But, alas, these 

 florists' carnations make wretched garden 

 plants! People often buy carnation plants 

 in spring and grow them outdoors, but the 

 flowers are not good enough, disbudding is 

 a bother, and the plants die the next 

 winter. Even if the plants are rested 

 over winter they are unsatisfactory in 

 the garden, as the stems are gawky and 

 require staking. Two other plans are 

 better. 



The first is to grow the Marguerite type, 



54 



treating the plants as annuals, i. e., you 

 sow the seeds outdoors in May and the 

 plants bloom from August until frost. 

 These glorious flowers often measure three 

 inches across and the colors include white, 

 blush, pink, salmon, carmine, scarlet, crim- 

 son, and maroon. This is the earliest of 

 the many types of carnation, blooming 

 in three months from seed, but the plants 

 will not last over the winter in the North 

 as a rule. The Chabaud strain is more 

 like the greenhouse carnation, but instead 

 of blooming eighteen months after seed- 

 sowing, it blooms in five or six. It is 

 best started indoors in March. 



The second plan is to grow a hardy type 

 of carnation that blooms the second year 

 and will give satisfaction one or two sea- 

 sons thereafter. The favorite strains for 

 this purpose are the Grenadin and the 

 Vienna. I like best the double scarlet 

 and double white Grenadin; the Vienna 

 varies too much. These plants are not 

 absolutely hardy, and should be lightly 

 covered with straw or long manure in 

 winter. 



The European catalogues are enough to 

 make a poor collector crazy. I have a 

 Scotch catalogue that offers 224 varieties oi 

 border carnations, and Bailey's "Survival 

 of the Unlike" gives a classification which 

 fires the heart to possess many types that 

 are unknown here. But this is nothing 

 new, for in 1597 Gerarde wrote that "to 

 describe each new -variety of carnation 

 were to roll Sisyphus' s stone or number the 

 sands." And, before you send all your 

 money abroad, ponder these words of 

 Arthur Herrington: "We can do nothing 



