{"id":258,"date":"2011-06-06T04:09:26","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T12:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=258"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:34","slug":"sweet-william","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/sweet-william\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet William"},"content":{"rendered":"

SWEET WILLIAM<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What do you make of a plant that goes by both “sweet William”\u009d and “stinking billy?”\u009d\u00a0 The plant in question is Dianthus barbatus, a member of the carnation or Caryophyllaceae family. \u00a0Gardeners have loved, planted and known the species best as sweet William.\u00a0 I don’t know where the “William”\u009d came from, but the “sweet”\u009d is probably derived from the flowers’ clove-like scent.\u00a0 “Stinking”\u009dis problematic.\u00a0 It is possible that back in the sixteenth century, when sweet William was introduced to Western Europe, the word “stinking”\u009d might have been a broad term, signifying anything with a strong odor or fragrance.\u00a0 It is equally possible that some people of the era may have found the aroma of cloves unpalatable. \u00a0The historical record does not clarify the sweet versus stinking situation, though English herbalist John Gerard, writing in 1597, noted, “These plants are kept and maintained in gardens more for to please the eye, than either the nose or belly.”\u009d
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And they certainly please the eye.\u00a0 If you have never seen sweet William, start by imagining a small, rather flat carnation or pink, with only five petals.\u00a0 The flower might be white, pink, rose, red, purple, or bi-colored, often with a white, central “eye zone.”\u009d Form a flattened flowerhead by combining that small flower with up to twenty more of its kind and place it at the top of a six to twenty-four-inch stalk.\u00a0 Add elongated leaves that appear opposite each other on the stalk and you have an approximation of sweet William.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But no matter how good your imagination, the reality is even better, and that is why the species has been popular for nearly five hundred years.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aside from “stinking billy,”\u009d sweet William has had lots of nicknames over the years.\u00a0 These include “sweet St. Johns,”\u009d “sweet Johns,”\u009d “poetic pink,”\u009d “pickery carnation pink”\u009d and “bunch pink.”\u009d\u00a0 The genus name, “dianthus,”\u009d comes from the Greek by way of New Latin.\u00a0 “Dios”\u009d means “heavenly”\u009d and “anthos”\u009d means flower.\u00a0 “Barbatus,”\u009d the species name, signifies something barbed or with sharp hairs.\u00a0 Whatever you call them, the flowers are biennials, meaning that they sprout and form a rosette of leaves in the first year, then flower and set seed in the second years.\u00a0 If the plants are well situated, they tend to reseed, \u00a0giving the impression that they are perennial.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like many flowering plants with pleasing colors and patterns, sweet William was a favorite of Victorian gardeners.\u00a0 Amateur and professional breeders vied with each other to produce new varieties and were especially smitten with bi-colored types.\u00a0 One popular heirloom variety, ‘Holborn Glory,’ still available today, is a bi-color featuring a bright white central “eye zone”\u009d surrounded by a wide band of dark red, which is in turn ringed with white along the toothed petal edges.\u00a0 Combining ‘Holborn Glory’ with other solid and bi-colored varieties en masse in a garden bed would create a swirling color pattern reminiscent of an Oriental rug or a paisley shawl.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 People don’t favor such wildly patterned planting schemes much any more, but sweet William is still popular for containers and colorful “filling”\u009d for bare spots in mixed borders.\u00a0 Dwarf varieties are also useful for edging beds.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This dianthus, like other family members, thrives in full sun in neutral soil, and is reputedly unattractive to deer.\u00a0 Start plants from seed indoors about eight weeks before the last frost date for your area or buy young specimens in cell packs at most large garden centers in early to mid spring.\u00a0 Mixed color assortments seem to be the easiest to fine, especially from seed vendors, but you can also purchase named varieties like ‘Newport Pink,’ introduced in 1926, and white and pink-flowered ‘Harlequin.’\u00a0 If possible, plant groups of three, five or seven plants near paths or seating areas so that garden guests can savor the spicy fragrance.\u00a0 After the blossoms fade, do not deadhead, as doing so prevents reseeding.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is still time to pick up some sweet William at your nearest plant retailer.\u00a0 For additional varieties next year, try Select Seeds, 180 Stickney Hill Road, Union, CT 06076, (800) 684-0395; <\/font><\/font>www.selectseeds.com<\/font><\/a>. Catalog $1.00.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SWEET WILLIAM \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What do you make of a plant that goes by both “sweet William”\u009d and “stinking billy?”\u009d\u00a0 The plant in question is Dianthus barbatus, a member of the carnation or Caryophyllaceae family. \u00a0Gardeners have loved, planted and known the species best as sweet William.\u00a0 I don’t know where the “William”\u009d came from, but … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}