My Kart
or Gillyflowers
...Flower of the Gods
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Dianthus varieties
Clove pinks are the most intoxicatingly fragrant, charming, sun, drought, and frost hardy, ancient perennials. They look like small carnations to which they are very closely related, but form low growing dense carpets of grey or green grasslike foliage from which emerge in late spring and through summer endless masses of blooms. Imagine sitting out in your garden on a summer's day as their intense sweet spicy scent fills the air around. These indispensable perennials for the fragrant garden have been treasured since before the 14th century. Gathered here is probably the largest offering of clove pinks in Australia.
Clove pinks are the most intoxicatingly fragrant, charming, sun, drought, and frost hardy, ancient perennials. They look like small carnations to which they are very closely related, but form low growing dense carpets of grey or green grasslike foliage from which emerge in late spring and through summer endless masses of blooms. Imagine sitting out in your garden on a summer's day as their intense sweet spicy scent fills the air around. These indispensable perennials for the fragrant garden have been treasured since before the 14th century. Gathered here is probably the largest offering of clove pinks in Australia.
Clove pinks prefer a neutral to alkaline soil. An easy way to achieve this if you garden on acid soil is to place a small handful of concrete rubble around each plant. Every t ime you water or it rains, lime is leached into the soil.
The fresh petals are spicy flavoured and edible. They are used to decorate salads (an Elizabethans delight), to decorate open faced sandwiches, to scatter over desserts, to flavour sweet butter (chop finely and add to unsalted butter, then wrap in a sausage shape with plastic cling film and store in the refrigerator) used to spread on warm scones and pikelets, and to add fragrance to mulled wines and cordials (another Elizabethan indulgence). The intensely fragrant flowers are delightful in posies and for use in buttonholes. All varieties are long-lived perennials, requiring a sunny position. They are ideal for edging paths, for rockeries, and to grow in garden pots where you can enjoy their fragrance.
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Dianthus arenarius
This is a rare and exquisite species of clove pink with a mass of deeply fringed, small (2.5 cm) pure white flowers that are delightfully fragrant. The flowers are borne on fine wiry stems up to 30 cm long and the foliage forms a fine textured deep green mat. It requires good drainage and sun to partial shade. Put a little posy near your bed for sweet dreams.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.50
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Clove Pink Arthur
This mid-twentieth century English variety is intensely fragrant, and particularly lovely with abundant semi-double, medium sized, pale pink, fringed flowers. It is also a particularly tough variety.
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$8.00
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Carthusian Pink or Cluster-head Pink
D. carthusianorum
This is a pink once commonly planted by the Carthusian monks in their Medieval gardens, and it is a notable butterfly attracting plant. The flowers which are borne in clusters are single with pretty pinked edges and rose coloured. Very rare.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Cheddar Pink
Dianthus gratianopolitanus
This is the true, highly fragrant pink native to the Cheddar Gorge in England. Very rare, very beautiful, with fringed light pink flowers borne in great profusion in spring above densely matted silvery green foliage. It has been threatened with extinction due to overpicking of the sweetly fragrant flowers, particularly in the Victorian era.
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$8.00
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Clove Pink Creswick
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$8.00
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Clove Pink 'Ian'
A gorgeous addition to our clove pinks, bred in 1938, forming a neat spreading cushion of foliage from which emerges in spring many tall stems of very double, dark velvety crimson flowers similar to carnations and having an intense carnation fragrance. It is one of the famous English Allwood-bred clove pinks, and has a long flowering season.
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$8.00
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Clove Pink 'Lionheart'
A deliciously fragrant hardy perennial forming a dense silvery-green carpet of fine-leaved foliage and bearing abundant filigree edged single flowers patterned in pink and crimson.
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$8.00
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Clove Pink 'Monica Wyatt'
A beautiful and exceptionally cold hardy variety (it will take down to —15 degrees C) with masses of phlox pink, very fragrant double flowers with a deeper pink eye. It is exceptionally free flowering and the dense low foliage is grey-green.
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$8.00
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Clove Pink 'Pike's Pink'
One of the most prolific flowering of clove pinks, forming a dense spreading cushion of blue-green foliage from which emerges masses of 15 cm flowering stems each bearing a small fluffy double, sweetly scented, light pink flower with a slightly deeper pink heart.
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$7.50
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Clove Pink Doris
An outstanding cut flower variety with large semi-double pale pink blooms wth a carmine eye. It is free flowering with sweet fragrance. The plant is very robust.
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$8.00
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Fringed Pink or Sand Pink
D. aienarius
A gorgeous intensely fragrant pink much loved in Victorian times. It forms a dense mat of very fine, bright green, grasslike foliage with, from summer to early autumn, masses of delicate, beautifully fringed, single white flowers with a tiny green spot. Rare.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Highland Fraser
This is a very striking variety. It is a strong grower forming a dense silver-grey mat, and sends up abundant tall strong flowering stems through spring. The flowers are white laced with deep red, and are sweetly fragrant.
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$8.00
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Inchmery
Grow a great treasure from the past. This gorgeous rare clove pink dates to 1800. The compact blue-green low growing plant covers for a long flowering period with fragrant double shell pink flowers which emerge from long elegant buds each ornamented with a deep red stripe. This variety is exquisitely delicate to look at - and a great survivor. Available from November 2010 onward.
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$9.00
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Jean d'Arc
This is one of the most elegant of all clove pinks, with very abundant intensely fragrant single fringed white flowers borne on slender stems to 20 cm above very attractive healthy blue-green foliage. But as with its namesake, its apparent fragility is belied by real toughness of character.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.50
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Joy
Bearing fuly double carnation-like medium sized blooms in deep strawberry pink with a deeper centre, Joy is a n excellent clove pink for the border with a neat habit and has a distinctive sweet fragrance.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Katherine
Dianthus x allwoodii
Utterly stunning. This variety, bred in England by a famous breeder of clove pinks, is now a treasured heritage variety with large, double, frilled, palest pink flowers edged with maroon, and very fragrant. It flowers at a height of approximately 20 cm, from spring to autumn.
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$8.00
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Kim Brown
This is such a charming plant, forming a silvery green mat and bearing masses of small, intensely clove fragrant, blossom pink, double flowers over a long season.
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$8.00
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Mars
This is a tiny flowered pink with deep red fully double flowers in profusion on a very low, very dense grey green carpet of fine grasslike foliage.
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$8.00
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May Queen
We love this old-fashioned, fully double clove pink, in pale pink overlaid with splashes and stripes of raspberry and crimson, filled with fragrance.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Miriam
No clove pink forms such a perfect dense carpet of fine foliage, and the flowers are equally elegant, borne on strong slender stems, small, single, soft pale pink, and intensely fragrant.
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$8.00
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Mrs. Sinkins
This is the famous 19th century double white clove pink which is so full of intensely spicy scented fragrant white petals she usually splits her calyx.The flowers are borne in the very greatest profusion and their fragrance can be detected from far away.
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$8.00
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Mt Tomah Powder Pink
A total charmer, forming a dense mound of silver grey foliage and covering with medium sized very double sweetly fragrant powder pink blossoms on 15 cm stems over a long flowering period.
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$8.00
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Napoleon III
This is an exceptionally rare historic variety bred in France c.1840. It is sterile and has Sweet William in its bloodline. A small group of such pinks were bred, all sterile, hence the group's name of Mule Pinks. Only one other variety survives, ''Emile Paré', from the same period in France. Napoléon is famous for its abundant blooming. The delightfully fragrant, double, rosy-crimson flowers are borne in terminal clusters on upright stems. The foliage is grass green, forming a lush cushion below the flowers. To own this is to own a piece of history.
Click on the picture to view a larger image
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$9.00
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Nola
Nola is an old variety with all the virtues that made clove pinks so loved by gardeners: easy growing, very floriferous, very sweetly fragrant, and very pretty. The profusion of medium sized fully double flowers are a soft pink with a crimson eye and the foliage is fine, dense, and silvery grey'. Its relatively long stems make it a favourite for fragrant posies.
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$8.00
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Old English Mauve
This endearing 19th century clove pink has loosely tassled, large, mauve, very double flowers with the most delicious and intoxicating sweet spicy fragrance. Rare.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Paisley
The Paisley Pinks were a great fashion in clove pinks, bred to resemble the complex lacework that made Paisley famous. This variety forms a spreading dense mat of silver-green leaves and bears abundant long graceful flowering stems. The pale pink flowers are fringed, slightly star-shaped, very fragrant, and prettily embroidered at the edges with crimson.
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$8.50
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Pretty
A true charmer with neat silvery grey fine foliage forming a dense mat and masses of very pretty small double pale pink flowers with a double eye zone of raspberry and deep raspberry. Delicious!
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Provence Wild Clove Pink
On one occasion while travelling in the Luberon region of southern France, we found a rocky cliffside literally covered in flowering clove pinks. They were wildly fragrant with masses of exquisitely delicate, tall stemmed, single, fringed flowers in white, pale pink, and rose. For all their elegance, they have a tough drought resistant constitution when once established
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$8.00
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Salmon
This old variety is just so good with abundant medium to large fragrant clear salmon pink flowers.
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$8.00
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Sops In Wine
This unusual name dates to the 1400s when spices were the province of the rich. Mulled ales and wines were flavoured by throwing in a handful of spicy scented clove pink flowers in inns. More than one cultivar was probably used for this purpose, but this cultivar has come down to us through the centuries under that name. It was sourced from a rare collection of heirloom clove pinks held in the USA, and is intensely spicily scented, with beautiful large double white flowers with a deep ruby centre. Exceptionally rare.
Temporarily unavailable
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$9.50
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Strawberry Fields
This variety flowers profusely in late spring bearing masses of carnation scented single clear strawberry flowers. It is exceptionally hardy.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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The Joker
Perfectly named, this cultivar has semi-double flowers which are irregularly striped and splashed ruby red on pale pink, with an inner rosette of petals, and fringing. No two flowers are exactly alike. The fragrance is delightfully sweet and spicy.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Tudor Manor
A profusion of single dark red blooms finely flaked with palest pink, and a delicious true carnation fragrance. The plant is strong, healthy, and forms a mounding cushion.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Tudor Tart
Exceedingly floriferous, densely spreading, the flower is very unusual, so fully reflexed so that it is reminiscent of a plump doughnut. The flowers are deep pink with a fine pale pink edge and are delightfully fragrant.
Temporarily unavailable
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$8.00
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Tuscan Lace
This exquisite, very fragrant clove pink looks as if the crimson petals were embroidered with finest white to pale pink lacework. Of typical 19th century form, this variety was raised by Dr Judyth McLeod from crosses between a collection of antique varieties held in Italy
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$8.00
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Valda Wyatt
This very repeat flowering cultivar, with occasional flowers even in winter, and has double rich pink flowers with deeper pink centres and clove scent.
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$8.00
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Whatfield Wisp
This is superb variety. It forms a dense very low silvery green spreading cushion with incredible numbers of tiny pale pink intensely scented flowers on 5 cm upright stems. We grow it in large terracotta pots whereit flowers over a couple of months. Rare.
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$8.50
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See also Sweet William, Perennial for Sooty and Nigricans in the section
Heirloom Flowers
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