David's Expert Timely Tips // Get The BEST Results With Garden Pinks (Dianthus) 👍😉😊👌🏡

Well, good morning and welcome to Over-the-Vest Nurseries. If you're a returning subscriber, welcome back. And if you haven't yet subscribed to our channel, can I suggest that now might be a good time to do so. And if you like any of our videos, it would be great if you could kindly click the like icon too, because that will help to make the information available for other people as well. It's a pleasant day in early spring. It's a little on the breezy side. Our neighbour's dogs are not too happy with my intervention in their environment. And as you see, this particular part of our property is right by the side of a busy road. But I wanted to take the opportunity to bring you into this garden, to let you see a couple of little timely tips that you can do to your garden pinks now, so that you get the very best from them. Now if you haven't considered growing some of them in your garden, I'd suggest that you take a look at this channel, and also our website, because they make terrific perennials. Wonderful, tight, compact little plants that come in a variety of types. Ones that are small and carpeting and creeping, with little single flowers, and then ones like this wonderful variety here from Proven Winners, that's called Classic Coral, that makes, as you see, tight, compact little bluish-gray mounds of foliage that are absolutely loaded with delightful and unusually colored coral pink flowers. A tremendous selection of all different types of varieties, including today, some of the new ever-blooming varieties, which have been bred by Rick Grazini up at Penn State in Pennsylvania. Wonderful re-blooming varieties that give you color right through the whole of the growing season. Now as you see, we're growing them here in this bed which is raised up from the entranceway. And that's a good location for growing them. They like to grow in full sun, they will tolerate some partial shade, but really they'll be tighter, more compact, and freer flowering, if you give them plenty of sunlight. But the main thing is a free-draining soil. They like to have, ideally, a free-draining, loamy-based soil that is fertile and going to produce plenty of good growth, but most importantly of all, will keep them dry here around their neck, around the crown, especially in wintertime. They just will not do in a heavy clay soil that lies wet during the wintertime. So if you have a raised bank, a sloping hillside, rockery, anywhere that's free-draining, they will do very well there. You can plant them out like we have them here, en masse. But if you only have a little small space, then of course you can grow just one plant, or a little group of three, and they will be absolutely divine. The neat thing about them is, as well as being colorful, tight and compact, free-flowering, and having most of them with evergreen foliage during the wintertime, the most beautiful thing about them, I think, is that they have, many of them, have a delicious, delightful fragrance. So if you plant these out somewhere near a patio, a deck, perhaps somewhere near the front door, somewhere where you're certainly going to be able to enjoy that wafting fragrance that's carried in the air, it is absolutely exquisite. And in its own right, is a perfect reason for growing them. Now they're really quite easy to grow, all they need is those conditions. But there is a little trick in growing them, that I think will help you get even more and better results from them. Let me show you what I mean. And that revolves around the nutrition and the pH level of your soil. You see, most of these varieties that we grow in our gardens today, are descended from a complex mixture of different species that comes from various parts of the world. Now most of those come from areas where the underlying rock is limestone. That obviously helps with the drainage, but also as you can guess, it means that there's plenty of calcium available for them too. Now this time of year, early spring, I usually like to go around and just give them a little supplementation of the nutrient, and that means sprinkling a little bit of a slow-release fertilizer around the plants. That will help to boost the nutrition level. But I also, and this is I think the important thing that I want to mention to you, and this is a good time of year for it, is to test the pH of your soil. You can buy these little test kits at the garden centers, and if you don't know what the pH of your soil is, it's worth testing it to find out. Here in this area, it tends to be on the low side of neutral. And ideally, Dianthus like to grow around about pH 7, a little on the alkaline side of neutral. Now when we tested this, it definitely needs a little bit of lime, and so I've got some Dolomitic limestone here, which we're just sprinkling around the perimeter of the plants now in early spring. That will sweeten up the soil, and when you do that, just key it in with a rake, that will help to make it available, and as soon as it rains, that soluble calcium will get into the soil, and your plants will do a lot better for it. Now like most things in life, you've got to be a little careful not to overdo it. So that's why testing your soil is important, because then you'll be able to determine just how much you put on. Put on too much lime, sweeten the soil too much, may lead to some problems where you lock up some of the other nutrients in the soil. So just follow the directions on the little packet, know what your pH is, and certainly then apply a little bit of lime if you need it, and you will see a dramatic difference in your plants. And now, a couple of weeks later, look what's happened. Our neighbor's dogs are still not very happy with me, but our little Dianthus as you see, has turned into an absolute picture. Now the thing I should mention is that these plants have really only been in this position a little over a year, so they've still got a lot of growing in front of them. This is Dianthus Classic Coral, part of the Fruit Punch series from Proven Winners. And as you see, it creates these gorgeous little mounds of silvery blue foliage, and then all of these miniature carnation-like flowers that are popping up out of the foliage, absolutely loaded with buds. This plant is just now beginning to flower, so in another week or ten days you can imagine, this will be a dome of this beautiful coral pink color, that also smells really delightful. So when you have them growing like this, all sparkling in the morning sunshine, it doesn't matter what's going on in the background, because this is just a beautiful display. So now you know what you can do to get the best from your little garden pinks. This is David Wilson. Enjoy your gardening. It's good for us, and it's very good for our environment too.