Gardening with Margaret Matthews
Jove’s flower for modern times
by Margaret Matthews
"They belong, more than any other flower, to the days of the sunbonnet and print gowns and the little crowded gardens of the past."
This evocative description comes from The Old Pinks, a chapter in Margery Fish’s ‘Cottage Garden Flowers’ (Faber and Faber 1983). This book was first published in 1961, and since that time there has been a great revival of "the little crowded gardens of the past".
Dianthus, or pinks, were named Dianthos, or flower of Jove, by the Athenians. The early English name for carnations was ‘Coronation’. All carnations and dianthus are from the one genus, but although they are grouped together botanically, horticulturally they are separated. There has been so much hybridisation and cross-fertilisation that it is difficult to make a clear distinction between the many species. Collectively there are about 270, and there were even more in Tudor times. During this period, as ‘Gillivors’, they enjoyed a popularity second only to the rose. The name ‘Gillivors’ may have been a corruption of ‘July flowers’, because in Britain this is the month when most of the older varieties flower.
It is believed that border carnations (D. caryophyllus) first arrived in England attached to stones imported for building churches and castles during the Norman invasion. They still grow in castle walls at Dover and Rochester in Kent, and at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire.
A large number of pinks have been developed from crossing D. caryophyllus and D. plumarius, and one of the most successful is the Allwoodii cultivar, which comes in many colours and has a greatly extended flowering season. D. chinensis, the Chinese or Indian pink, D. superbus, the very old fringed white, and the ‘mule’ pinks, so called because like their namesake they are sterile, are just a few of the many others that have been documented in articles and books devoted to perennials or cottage garden plants.
Some of the old varieties of D. plumarius are worth cultivating despite only flowering in spring. The most famous, or perhaps infamous, of these is ‘Mrs Sinkins’.
The English garden writer Vita Sackville-West described her as a "ragged old lady, heavily scenting the air". Another writer, Christopher Lloyd, goes further: "A terrible old slut," he writes, "invariably bursting her calyx, but with an airborne scent surpassing all others." Her daughter, Miss Sinkins, Vita Sackville-West thought was "much tidier and primmer, a retiring Victorian maiden". Other groups of cottage pinks include Herbert’s pinks, London pinks, Imperial pinks and the ‘laced’ pinks, whose petals are edged with a contrasting colour. Small pinks suitable for the rock garden include D. alpinus, D. gratianopolitanus, D. deltoides, D. pavonius, D. neglectus and D. subcaulis (the latter does not require lime).
Pinks are easy to grow. They prefer gritty soil but will tolerate clay providing it is well-drained. They need plenty of sunshine and an annual dressing of lime if the soil is at all acid. They can be used as an edging plant, or in clumps in rockeries. They combine well with roses, larkspur, lavender, geraniums and other cottage plants. The glaucous foliage blends well with other grey-foliaged blends. Because pinks are so generous with their flowers they may exhaust themselves and have to be replanted after several years, but they strike readily from tip cuttings or side shoots. In height they vary from 10 to 30 centimetres and in width from 12 to 40 centimetres. Most of them have a fresh, spicy clove scent of varying intensity, but in this are none can rival the much maligned ‘Mrs Sinkins’.
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