Plant of the Week
Amazon Pinks
Latin: Dianthus
 Agriculture has advanced through the ages in a series of fits and starts as
farmers have adopted new technology. Learning to domesticate crops such as
wheat, rice and corn - none of which are capable of surviving in the wild in
their domesticated form - lead the way into our modern age some 15,000 years
ago. The creation of controlled hybrids was a further refinement of this
technique, but it was not used until the 18th century.
Hybrids are crosses between two closely related plants that have recognizable
differences, with the offspring of the cross displaying characteristics of both
parents. Don’t confuse an understanding of the principles of inheritance, which
the Austrian Monk Gregor Mendel worked out with his garden peas and published in
1866, with creation of controlled hybrids that began a century earlier.
In the West, the first recognition of an accidental hybrid occurred in a
London garden about 1720 when a nurseryman named Thomas Fairchild noticed a
seedling growing in his border. This strange plant contained characteristics
intermediate between the clove pink (the predecessor of the carnation we use for
cut flowers) and the Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus). The plant became
known as Fairchild’s mule because it was sterile and failed to produce seeds.
The hybrid, an ugly and horticulturally uninteresting thing, created a stir
in the society of learned gentlemen of England, because most held a
creationistic view of the natural world. God had created all of the plants and
animals of the world during the seven days described in Genesis; man’s job was
but to discover and describe all of these creations. Creating new forms through
crossing was an affront to God. This so troubled Fairchild that, upon his death
in 1729, he left money to his church for a yearly lecture - called the Vegetable
Sermons - on the relationship between God and Nature. These sermons still
continue.
The first scientific studies of hybridization occurred in Germany in the
1760s and eventually lead to our modern understanding of inheritance. Even with
almost 250 years of controlled hybridization under our belt, plant breeders
continue to make new and interesting crosses that produce useful plants. One of
these is the Amazon Series of Pinks that began showing up in gardens about 2000.
A PanAmerican Seed Co. plant breeder named Linda Laughner, working in Santa
Paula, Cal., developed the hybrids. Laughner was breeding dianthus for the cut
flower market when she hit on the idea of crossing the biennial Sweet William (Dianthus
barbatus) with the Chinese pinks (D. chinensis).
The Amazon Hybrids have stout, 2-foot tall stems in terminal clusters like
the Sweet William parent while the Chinese pink parent allows them to flower
from seed the first year and continue to rebloom during the growing season.
Laughner’s hybrids created a whole new class of cut dianthus for flower
arrangements.
Even though Chinese pinks are usually treated as an annual, they are
perennial in most areas of the southeast. I have had Amazon hybrids in my garden
for four years, and they have proven to be reliable perennials. The flower
colors are pink, rose or a striking pink and white combination.
Amazon dianthus can be grown as cut flowers by starting seeds early in the
spring and moving them to a sunny place in your garden by mid March. They flower
in about 18 weeks from seed, which makes peak bloom around mid-June.
If you use them as a perennial, give them a sunny, well-drained location in
the border. By cutting off old blooms as they wither, the plants will throw up
additional shoots in a few weeks for a second display.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
June 4, 2004
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