Carnation Chabaud Life-Cycle

I have been wandering whether our carnation flowers produce seeds. It should have seeds since in our local seed company catalog there are seeds available. The chabaud carnation that we grow were not originally sowed by us. I bought a punnet from our local nursery when we were really wet behind the ear in the world of gardening. When we started gardening, carnation was one of the first flower that grace our garden. Lucky for us, it thrives in neglect. It dislike the hot summer here though. Commonly, bloom in spring but we have some bloom in autumn or winter due to strange weather. Carnation were growing well side by side with chives in one of our containers previously.

Fresh carnation seeds collected last spring.

Newly sprouted carnation seeds.

Carnation seedlings.

It was much easier to collect seeds from single layer petal carnation than the multiple-layers one. But it will be interesting to see if those seeds follows the features of its parents or diverse.

Looks like a flower bud but it is actually carnation seed pod.

We did not planned to collect carnation at first since we don't know where the seeds are hiding. But my cousin Lenay while she was dead-heading spent blooms stumbled on the carnation seeds hide-out.

Eureka! Eureka!

Carnation can also be propagated by stem cuttings.

This plants has been in good mood and give us some flowers to cut for indoors.

Hope you have a Wonderful day this Wednesday.

Carnation cuttings

Carnation was one of the first flower we planted in our place here in Adelaide. I bought a punnet of carnation ‘Chabaud mix’ seedlings in autumn year of 2009. Carnation need to be cut down very often as they grow lush and spread out pretty fast. This also promote more flowering. Carnation is a herbaceoues perennial plant and it is said to be originated from the Mediterranean region. The lower branch of our carnations were getting woody and old. We also liked to clear the area which the carnation was growing and move the carnation to another place. I think it will be a waste not to keep this plant because it thrive in neglect and it blooms longer than other flowers. So I google and see what option I can keep on growing this plant; to transplant the whole plant, grow from seeds or can it grow back by cuttings. I decided to have a go at growing them by cuttings make new baby carnation plants.  I cut some new shoot stems and stuck it into the soil.

I cut some carnation cuttings and stick it in polystyrene container in End of August last year.

More than 2 weeks later, we can see some growth from the cuttings.

Blooming profusely by Mid of November and need regular headings for promoting more flowers. Young plants give more blooms rather than the old plants. I will put in our autumn plan to grow new plants from cuttings and put in in the layout plan .

This is just the collection of ‘Chabaud mix’ that we have in our garden.  For my notes, to decide to have a colourful mixture or single colours in one row for next autumn/spring. I hope my photographic memory won’t failed me to remember which colour is growing in which area.

For more flowers visit Ewa.