Turkish carnation - planting a miracle and caring for it. Perennial garden Turkish carnation seed planting and care

It is quite unpretentious, so it is not difficult to grow these flowers. Gardeners love this flower for its ease of cultivation, as well as for bright bloom quite a long time.

Carnation (Dianthus) has about 400 varieties. In addition, many stunning varieties with simple and double flowers have been bred. Flowers are characterized by frost resistance and cold resistance.

They are divided into perennials, one- and two-year-olds. Carnations look great in flower beds, in borders and organically look among the stones.

Gardeners have been growing cloves since ancient Greece.

From the 16th century, the carnation begins to spread widely throughout Europe, and it is from there that the Turkish or bearded carnation.

Turkish carnation: flower

Turkish carnation is a low plant 20-80 cm high. Its dense inflorescences consist of a large number small flowers 1-1.5 cm in size.

The color of the inflorescences is the most diverse: from snow-white to dark cherry. There are one-, two- and three-color carnations, with eyes, dashes and strokes. Flowers can be simple and double.

Reproduction of Turkish cloves

Reproduction of Turkish cloves occurs by planting its seeds. You just need to know the timing of its sowing. It is better to sow a biennial plant at the end of May or at the beginning of June, so that in August or at the beginning of September, the grown seedlings will be transplanted into flower beds in a timely manner.

In the event that some plants were planted for growing, then they need to be transplanted only in the spring (and this is best done together with an earthen clod).

If two-year-olds are sown before the first frosts, sprinkled with sand or mature compost), then in the spring the carnation shoots will be able to grow a rosette and enchant with their beauty next summer. seeds perennial carnation can be planted in April, followed by seating in the ground, or in May immediately to the garden. After a year, the plants can be moved to permanent place.

In the year of sowing from seed Turkish cloves a powerful outlet grows. The carnation blooms only the next year.

If, after flowering, flower stalks are removed from the carnation, new layering may form on the outlet, which will bloom the very next year.

In addition, you can cut the cuttings after flowering and plant them for rooting. Closer to winter, a new green rosette grows on the cuttings.

You can sow seeds in spring, summer or autumn before winter. It happens that carnations that have preserved heredity do not always grow from their own seeds. It may well appear completely new and no less beautiful plant.

Features of caring for Turkish cloves

Turkish carnation prefers sunny places. It will also grow in the shade, but not so brightly. Water regularly, both before and after flowering. Moreover, it is recommended to hold the hose or watering can close to the ground when watering. It is better to avoid excessive dampness, as the plant may die with root rot.

beautiful and exuberant bloom carnations can only be on fertile soils. To do this, humus and peat are introduced into the landing site, as well as mineral fertilizers, sand and ash.

The depth of digging is at least 25-30 cm. Plants are fed when they reach 10-12 cm, combined with watering, both before and during flowering.

To prevent the plant from getting sick with root rot, the carnation, upon reaching about 10 cm in height, is treated with fungicidal preparations, such as Hom.

Despite the fact that the Turkish carnation under the snow tolerates frost well, it is better late autumn mulch it with a thick layer of humus, sawdust or peat.

And to protect the leaves from burns first sun rays overwintered plants are best covered with lutrasil.

At the end of winter, it is also necessary to remove snow from plantings so that the plant does not prop up and get wet.

Turkish carnation can be planted in flower beds along with any annual flowers. Not too tall varieties look great in front of shrubs or in front of tall perennials.

Turkish carnation: 9 cultivation features 1. Turkish carnation is also called bearded carnation (Dianthus barbatus L) because each flower has bracts, ciliated along the edge. Flowers, simple or double, collected in lush corymbose inflorescences, often with pleasant aroma. And what a variety of colors this carnation has! Monochromatic - from white to maroon, with an eye, with a border, with bizarre, as if in a kaleidoscope, drawings ... It must be remembered that the Turkish carnation is cultivated in our country as a biennial and forms only lush green rosettes in the year of sowing. And only at the beginning of the next summer for a month and a half will it paint your flower beds in colorful patterns. 2. In June, Turkish cloves can be sown in open ground. Pre-prepare the bed with fertile soil. It is advisable to place it in an open sunny place. Sow seeds (and they are large enough for Turkish cloves) sow in rows, leaving a distance of 15 cm between them. Spill shallow grooves with water. Try to spread the seeds in them less often from each other. Top with cling film until sprouts appear. nonwoven fabric. If the seedlings turned out to be thick - it does not matter, thin out the crops. Removed seedlings can be planted, the bearded carnation blooms well again, the plant tolerates a transplant. 3. When the seedlings grow up, pick them up. And in August - September, plant the overgrown plants in the planned places. Plant them thicker, then the carnation grows into a dense carpet, leaving no chance for weeds. And it is also good for padding the “bare legs” of autumn perennials. 4. You can sow Turkish cloves before winter, in October. Only in this case, the seeds are placed in dry grooves. In dry weather, it is advisable to water the carnation (under the root). But you can’t keep it in dampness - on wet soils it falls out due to rotting of the basal rosette. 5. Turkish carnation reproduces well by self-sowing. 6. If you do not need seeds, cut off the faded inflorescences. Then the plantings will have a neat appearance and can bloom again. On plants of the color you like, do not cut the boxes. Collect ripened seeds and sow in a flower garden. If this is done constantly, the carnation will bloom abundantly and in the colors you need. 7. For all its unpretentiousness and cold resistance, carnation grows and blooms better in open places, on fertile, well-drained soils. In this case, one top dressing in the spring in the second year of life is enough for her. 8. It happens that after wintering, the knotty stems of carnations stretch out and lie down. In this case, sprinkle them with soil. Rooted, they will give life to new outlets. 9. Varieties of Turkish cloves differ not only in color, but also in height. Undersized outgrowths grow up to 15-20 cm, tall ones - up to 40-60 cm. Depending on this, carnation can be used as a ground cover plant, on alpine hills, to create borders, in flower beds ... And everywhere it will come in handy.

Turkish carnation, or bearded carnation (lat. Dianthus barbatus)- a plant of the genus Carnation of the Carnation family. The generic name of the plant is translated from Greek as "flower of Zeus" or " divine flower”, and this carnation is called bearded for the presence of bracts with ciliated edges. The Turkish carnation comes from Southern Europe. She grows on river sands, in groves, deciduous forests, meadows and rocks. The plant has been cultivated since 1573, and today Turkish cloves can be found in almost every garden. It is used to create alpine slides, flower beds, borders and even as a groundcover.

Planting and caring for a Turkish carnation (in a nutshell)

• Bloom: from the end of June to the end of July.
• Landing: sowing seeds for seedlings - in late March or early April, planting seedlings in the ground - in the second half of May. Sowing seeds directly into the ground - at the end of May or at the beginning of June, as well as in October, but only dry seeds are sown before winter.
• Lighting: bright sunlight.
• The soil: fertile, sandy or loamy.
• Watering: 2 times a week, with a consumption of 12-15 liters of water per 1 m² of land. In hot and dry summers, you will have to water more often.
• Top dressing: three times per season: when the seedlings grow to 10-12 cm, at the stage of formation of the first buds and during flowering. Both mineral and organic solutions can be used.
• Reproduction: seed - seedling and seedless.
• Pests: bears and earwigs.
• Diseases: fusarium, rust and viral mottle.

Read more about growing Turkish cloves below.

Turkish cloves - description

Turkish carnation is a herbaceous perennial grown in a biennial culture. It has straight, strong knotted stems 30-75 cm high, glabrous, sessile lanceolate opposite leaves, green or blue-green with a reddish tinge, and numerous fragrant, double, semi-double or simple flowers diameter from 1.5 to 3 cm different shades white, red, pink, cream color- one-color, two-color, variegated, velvety, with a border or an eye. The flowers are collected in a corymbose inflorescence up to 12 cm in diameter, which opens in the second year of life and blooms for a month from the end of June. In the first year, the Turkish carnation forms only a rosette of leaves. The fruit of the plant is a box with black flat seeds that ripen by August and remain viable for 3 to 5 years. Turkish cloves are grown not only for landscaping, but also for cutting: its inflorescences stand in water for up to two weeks.

Sowing Turkish cloves

If you decide to grow Turkish cloves seedling way, then sowing is carried out in March or early April in a substrate previously disinfected with a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate. The substrate is prepared from sand and leaf humus in equal parts. Instead of sand, you can take vermiculite. As a container, boxes or containers can be suitable, which must be washed before use. hot water with soda. A layer of drainage is laid at the bottom of the container, and a wet substrate is placed on top.

Turkish clove seeds are sown to a depth of 1 cm, spreading them at a distance of 2-3 cm from each other. Crops are covered with loose white paper and kept at a temperature of 16-18 ºC, from time to time moistening the substrate from a spray bottle with water room temperature.

Turkish carnation seedling care

As soon as shoots appear, the crops are transferred as close as possible to the light, and the temperature of the content is lowered by 2-3 degrees so that the seedlings do not stretch. It is likely that you will need to provide additional lighting for seedlings, as plants need a lot of light. At the stage of formation of the second pair of true leaves, seedlings dive into peat pots with a soil mixture of the same composition in which you sowed the seeds. Turkish carnation seedling care consists of regular watering and careful loosening of the substrate around the seedlings.

Seedlings are planted in open ground in the second half of May, when warm weather, but before planting, seedlings of Turkish cloves must undergo hardening procedures: daily crops are taken out into the open air, gradually increasing the duration of the session. At first, half an hour is enough, but in two weeks, a Turkish carnation from seeds should get used to the new environment so that it can be safely planted in a flower bed.

Sowing Turkish cloves in the ground

When to sow Turkish cloves outdoors

Turkish carnation flowers can be sown directly in the garden, bypassing the stage of growing seedlings. When to plant Turkish cloves in the ground? In late May or early June, when the soil warms up and the threat passes return frosts. You can sow Turkish carnation seeds in October, but do not forget that any autumn sowing must be carried out with dry seeds, and the soil must also be dry. In autumn, crops are mulched with peat or sawdust, and in spring the mulch is removed.

How to plant Turkish cloves in the garden

Choose a sunny area for the plant with fertile soil, preferably sandy or loamy. The soil on the site one to two weeks before sowing must be dug up to a depth of 20-25 cm with the simultaneous introduction of compost or humus and wood ash at the rate of 6-8 kg of organic matter and 200-300 g of ash per 1 m² of land. You can also make mineral fertilizers: a tablespoon of Nitrofoska and a teaspoon of Agricola for flowering plants for the same unit area. After digging, the area is covered with plastic wrap.

When the time comes to sow cloves, the film is removed, grooves are made in the soil 1-1.5 cm deep at a distance of 15 cm from each other, they are well spilled with water, and then the seeds are laid out in them in increments of 2-3 cm. After planting the seeds, the surface lightly compact and cover with non-woven material until emergence.

Turkish Carnation Care

How to care for a Turkish carnation

Garden Turkish carnation needs regular watering: 2 times a week at a rate of 12-15 liters per m² of land. If the summer is dry and hot, then you will have to water more often. Try to pour water on the ground so that the jet does not fall on the plant itself, otherwise it may get a sunburn. However, if the carnation grows in a lowland, be careful with watering, otherwise the plant may get root rot from waterlogging: as soon as you find that the Turkish carnation drops its rosettes, treat it with a solution of 40 g of HOM in 10 liters of water.

Growing Turkish cloves involves fertilizing the soil. The first feeding is carried out when the seedlings reach a height of 10-12 cm. A solution of one tablespoon of Nitrophoska and one tablespoon of Agricola Forward in 10 liters of water is used as a fertilizer. The next time the plant is fed at the stage of formation of the first buds: in 10 liters of water, dilute with a tablespoon of superphosphate and potassium sulfate. During flowering, a solution of 1 tablespoon of Agricola for flowering plants in 10 liters of water is added to the soil.

After watering, rain and fertilization, the soil around the plants must be loosened to prevent the rapid evaporation of moisture. Do not forget to also remove weeds in a timely manner and cut off faded stems at a height of 10-15 cm from the ground: in a month, new shoots will grow at the carnation, and by autumn it may bloom again.

The perennial Turkish carnation, although it is hardy plant, but it will better endure the winter under a layer of peat or humus 8-10 cm thick. In general, when favorable conditions and good care the lifespan of a perennial carnation is 5-6 years, and under less favorable circumstances - at most 2-3 years.

Pests and diseases of Turkish carnation

AT normal conditions Turkish carnation usually does not get sick, and insects rarely damage it, but sometimes troubles do happen, and you need to be prepared for them. How can a Turkish carnation in the garden get sick? In addition to being sensitive to heavy metals and urban smoke, it can be affected by:

• fusarium - fungal disease, destructive vascular system plants. The leaves of the carnation evenly turn yellow, wither, but do not fall off, the stem turns red or brown, the flowers bloom incompletely or do not open at all, the basal part of the stem and root system plants rot. Sick specimens must be destroyed immediately, but for now healthy plants and the soil around them is treated with a fungicidal preparation in two stages with an interval of 10-15 days;
• rust is also a fungal disease that affects the leaves, petioles and stems of the carnation: brown swellings with yellowish spots appear on them, the plants are oppressed, the stems dry out and break. The disease progresses against the background high humidity soil, excess nitrogen and lack of potassium. When signs of disease appear, the plants are treated with 1% Bordeaux liquid, a solution of the drug HOM or any other fungicide of similar action;
• mottle may appear in spring as spots on leaves without clear contours, deformation of flowers and variegation. medication for this viral disease does not exist, so the affected plants are destroyed.

Of the pests of Turkish carnation, root-damaging bears and earwigs can annoy, from which seedlings, young shoots and flowers of the plant suffer. The fight against bears and earwigs is carried out by such means as digging the soil in autumn and organizing traps: dig a hole, fill it with manure and cover it with something from the rain. Medvedki will gather in a hole to spend the winter warm, and in the spring they can be destroyed. AT summer time the bear can be lime, bay into the passages leading to their nests, concentrated soap solution, and for earwigs, baits are laid out over the area in the form of heaps of wet grass or half-rotted hay covered with boards, into which pests crawl to hide from the heat.

Unlike other types of carnations, which are plants with a long daylight hours, homemade Turkish cloves can grow in partial shade without compromising health and decorativeness. Optimum temperature for a plant 15-18 ºC.

The soil of the Turkish carnation needs a fertile, neutral reaction, for example, a mixture of leafy soil, sand, peat and soddy soil in a ratio of 1:1:1:2. Before planting, the mixture is disinfected. When transplanting, the root neck should remain at the level of the surface of the site. To form more lush bush pinch a young carnation as soon as it has 5-7 pairs of leaves.

You need to water the carnation abundantly - earthen clod in a pot should not dry out. Water for irrigation is used soft, room temperature. In the evening, in the hot summer, Turkish cloves are sprayed.

Starting from the age of one month, carnations are fed every ten days with a complex mineral fertilizer for flowering plants. Fertilizers are diluted in water with the addition of milk and the soil in a spray bottle is sprayed with this solution. Top dressing is applied from spring to October, in winter time the plant is not fed.

Turkish cloves at home can be hit spider mites, aphids and mealybugs. Wash off the pests with soapy water, then spray the plant with an infusion of tansy, celandine or yarrow, but if these measures do not work, treat the Turkish carnation with Aktellik, Aktara or another insectoacaricide.

Varieties of Turkish cloves

The most common varieties of Turkish cloves are:

• Diadem- bushes up to 45 cm high with shoots and leaves of dark green color with a red tint and dark red nodes. Dark carmine flowers with a large white eye and petals serrated along the edge are collected in an inflorescence up to 10 cm in diameter;
• scarlet beauty- bushes 45-50 cm high with dark green leaves and shoots and bright red flowers up to 23 mm in diameter with petals serrated along the edge;
• Heimatland- bushes up to 50 cm high with shoots and leaves of dark green color with a dark red tint. The flowers are dark red, up to 2 cm in diameter, with an eye and petals deeply serrated along the edge. Inflorescences in this variety with a diameter of up to 12 cm;
• Lachskenigin- a variety about 45 cm high with large inflorescences of salmon-pink flowers;
• Schneebal- white Turkish carnation up to 40 cm high with green leaves and shoots. Terry flowers with jagged edges of petals are collected in inflorescences up to 11 cm in diameter;
• Weiss Risen- bushes up to half a meter high with green leaves and shoots and white flowers up to 25 mm in diameter, collected in inflorescences up to 12 cm in diameter;
• Kupferrot- bushes up to half a meter high with dark green leaves and shoots and copper-red flowers up to 22 mm in diameter with jagged edges. Inflorescences reach a diameter of 9-10 cm;
• Egyptian- a variety up to 60 cm high with narrow burgundy leaves and catchy maroon flowers with a white border;
• Undine- this variety has purple flowers with a white center and a white border.

The variety type Holland has also gained popularity - a group of varieties about 60 cm high with branched stems and multi-flowered inflorescences up to 12 cm in diameter. Cut flowers of this series last up to two weeks.

Today I want to tell you about another beautiful, but not at all whimsical plant. The plant is a Turkish carnation and in this article you will learn how to plant, what kind of care this wonderful flower needs. After reading the article, you will understand that there is nothing complicated here. Once again, the plant is unpretentious, but still you need to know some features.

Probably, before writing about how planting and care are carried out, a few words need to be said about the varieties of Turkish cloves. There are a lot of varieties, but I will write a few lines only about a few.

The first grade is a mixture of colors. The variety is distinguished by its resistance to cold and frost. This variety of Turkish carnation prefers sunny places, although it can tolerate light partial shade. As for the soil, for abundant flowering, you need to take care of its fertility. In the first year of planting, the Turkish carnation of the “Mix of Colors” variety produces basal leaves by autumn, which, in next year give abundant flowering. As the name "mixture of colors" implies, flowers have different colors.

The Turkish carnation of the Heimatland variety is distinguished by beautiful, dark red and. The peak of flowering is in May-June.

No less beautiful and large flowers have a Turkish carnation of the Lahskenigin variety. Only the color of the flowers is salmon-pink.

Lovers of white flowers can purchase the Schnebbel variety.

Turkish carnation planting and care

Before you start planting a Turkish carnation, you need to take care of the place where the carnation will grow. Like all beautiful flowering plants, turkish carnation loves when sunlight a lot, and it is desirable to grow it in soil rich in nutrients. If the soil is rich in various nutrients, then the plant will delight you with abundant flowering, which will not be on poor soils. It's okay if the carnation will grow in light partial shade.

Before you start planting carnations, you must: dig and make necessary fertilizers, for example, humus or compost, and a little more wood ash and mineral fertilizers. Of the mineral fertilizers, it is better to choose for flowering plants; along with them, potassium sulfate and nitrophoska are added to the soil. How much fertilizer should be applied to the soil, the instructions will tell.

The soil for planting Turkish cloves is dug up to a depth of 25 cm. Then, it is leveled with a rake, and if the soil is dry, then it must be moistened. Prepared beds are covered with oilcloth, or any other covering material. Two weeks after the land is prepared, you can start planting Turkish carnation seeds.

When to plant Turkish cloves

Turkish cloves are considered biennial plant and is mostly planted in June or July. You can plant seeds before winter around the end of October. At autumn planting, the seeds of Turkish cloves can neither be watered nor soaked, as they say, a dry planting is carried out.

Before planting seeds, grooves are made in the garden with a depth of 1 cm. The grooves are made at a distance of 15 cm from each other. When planting seeds in the summer, water is poured into the grooves, then the seeds are sown and covered with earth, lightly tamping it down. Plantings no longer need to be watered until shoots appear.

Carnation Turkish cultivation and care

When growing Turkish cloves, care is mainly weeding, watering, loosening the soil and removing weeds. In general, the plant likes to drink a lot of water, therefore, it is recommended to water it at least once a week, if the weather is hot and dry, then watering is carried out 2 times a week.

During watering, you need to try so that water does not fall on flowering plants. Despite the fact that the carnation is a real water drink, it is also not worth pouring it. With excessive moisture, the carnation is affected by root rot and the plant dies. For the same reason, you should not grow Turkish cloves in wet and low-lying places.

In the spring, when the snow has completely melted, it is advisable to cover the area with Turkish cloves with a covering material. This is necessary first of all in order to protect the seedlings from sunburn. Do not remove the covering material until the flowers start to grow.

Turkish carnation, care and feeding

Turkish carnation flowers are responsive to various top dressings. For the season you need to spend 2-3 top dressing.

The first top dressing is carried out when the plants reach a height of 10 cm. Nitrophoska and any other complex fertilizer are used for this top dressing.

The second feeding is carried out when the buds begin to form. For this top dressing, fertilizers for flowering plants are used, or potassium sulfate and superphosphate can be purchased.

Well, the third top dressing is carried out when abundant flowering occurs. For the third top dressing, fertilizers for flowering plants are used.

After each watering and top dressing, it is necessary to loosen the ground around the flowers.

Turkish carnation after flowering

Caring for Turkish cloves after flowering is not at all difficult. When the plant has faded, the bushes are pruned. After pruning, planting, you need to water, remove weeds and loosen the ground.

About a month later, new sprouts appear, which in the fall can give a slight flowering.

Caring for Turkish Carnations in Autumn: Preparing for Winter.

Despite the fact that Turkish carnation is considered a frost-resistant plant, it is still better to cover it for the winter. As a covering material, you can use spruce paws, or a peat mixture. When the snow melts, the shelter should not be removed immediately. Firstly, in the spring the danger of night frosts is still great. And secondly, I already wrote above, the shelter protects young plants from burns.

Wait for the moment when it starts to grow, during this period you can remove the covering material, but you still need to shade the young seedlings.

Despite the fact that snow protects plants from frost, in spring it can pose a threat to Turkish cloves. The plant does not tolerate excessive moisture, and during the melting of snow, this is exactly what happens (waterlogging of the soil). In this case, it is better to remove the snow from the landings and make small grooves along which excess moisture will drain.

Turkish carnation is a plant with unusual flowers, which have bracts with ciliated edges. For this feature, this plant is also called the bearded carnation. And her generic name in Greek sounds like the flower of Zeus. The homeland of the Turkish carnation is Southern Europe. Cultivation began around mid-sixteenth centuries and since then its popularity has not been lost. Today, this flower can be found in almost every garden, where it is used to create flower beds, rock gardens and borders. Some choose to grow this species at home.

In order for the Turkish carnation to grow bright and beautiful, it needs proper care

plant description

Turkish cloves are herbaceous plant belonging to the genus Carnation. The stem is straight, glabrous, strong, knotty, 30 to 75 cm in height. The leaves are lanceolate, sit oppositely on the stem, painted green or blue-green.

During the flowering period, the plant produces numerous double, semi-double or simple flowers, the diameter of which is 1.5-3 cm. But the most beautiful umbrellas are, of course, Turkish terry carnation. It is perfect for lawns, and for borders, and for decorating terraces, balconies and loggias.

As you can see in the photos presented in this article, the color of the Turkish carnation can be different: cream, red, white, pink. Flowers can be single or bicolor, with a border on the petals or with dark spot in the center.

Many beginner flower growers are interested in the question: is the Turkish carnation perennial or not. This plant is a perennial, but cultivated as a biennial. In the first year of life, it gives only a rosette of leaves, and corymbose inflorescences, composed of variegated flowers, open only in the second year after planting. Flowering lasts about a month. At the end of this period, fruits appear on the stems - boxes with dark small flat grains.

Turkish clove seeds ripen around the end summer period and remain viable for three years

Seedling cultivation

When growing Turkish cloves from seeds, sowing is carried out in March or in the first decade of April. In order to get strong healthy seedlings, the seed must be placed in a previously disinfected substrate. Disinfection is usually carried out using a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate. The substrate itself must be fertile, often made up of leaf humus and sand.

So, growing Turkish cloves in seedlings.

• We wash the container for seedlings with hot water, put it on the bottom drainage layer, top - moistened substrate.
• We sow the seeds, laying them to a depth of about 1 cm. At the same time, the distance between them should be 2-3 cm.
• We cover the container with loose paper and keep it at a temperature of +16..18°C. Moisten the substrate periodically.
• When shoots appear, we transfer the container to a well-lit place and lower the temperature by a couple of degrees.
  

  Note! If the air temperature is high, then the seedlings can stretch out a lot!

• As soon as a couple of true leaves appear on the seedlings, we dive them into separate peat cups. We use the same soil mixture.

Until the plants are transplanted to a permanent place, the soil around the seedlings must be regularly loosened and watered.

A couple of weeks before transplanting cloves into open ground, it is necessary to begin the hardening procedure. Every day we take out young plants on Fresh air, increasing the exposure time daily. After two weeks, the seedlings should completely get used to the new environment. It is desirable that by this time they spend the night with an open window.

Sowing in open ground

To begin with, it is worth figuring out when to plant Turkish cloves in open ground. They do this in the third or fourth decade of May, when the threat of night frosts has passed, and the soil and air have warmed up sufficiently.

On a note! Sowing seeds in open ground can also be done in the fall - in October, but remember that the seed in this case, like the soil, must certainly be dry. After sowing, the site is insulated with sawdust or peat. In the spring, the mulch layer is removed.

Sow seeds preferably in a sunny area. The most preferred are places with sandy or loamy soil. A couple of weeks before sowing, the bed is dug up to a depth of about 20 cm and a mixture of compost and wood ash is added - for each square meter about 7 kg of organic matter and 250 g of ash. At the same time, you can fertilize the soil mineral supplements for flowering plants - about a tablespoon per square meter. We cover the prepared area with polyethylene and leave for 10-15 days.

We proceed directly to the planting of Turkish carnations:

• We make shallow grooves in the soil, leaving a distance of 15 cm between them. Spill them well with water.
• We put seeds in each groove. Do not forget to leave between them 2-3 cm.
• Sprinkle the substrate on top and slightly compact the soil. From above, we cover the crops with woven material.
• When the first shoots appear, remove the cover.

Turkish carnation grows well in well-lit areas with fertile soil.

Features of care

In open ground conditions

When planting a Turkish carnation in open ground, care for it should be regular.

• Plants are watered twice a week at the rate of 13-15 liters of water per square meter. If the summer turned out to be too hot, then watering is carried out more often. In this case, it is desirable to pour water directly onto the soil in the root region of each bush, avoiding water getting on the green part of the plant, otherwise a burn may form on the foliage. If you planted a Turkish carnation in a lowland, then special care must be taken with watering. When waterlogged planting soil can affect root rot.
• As for dressings, the first is introduced into the substrate when the senets reach 12 cm in height. In this case, they usually use a solution of Nitrofoska and Agricola (one tablespoon of each drug per bucket of water). The second time fertilizers are applied during the period of the first bud formation - 15 ml of superphosphate and 15 ml of potassium sulfate are added to a bucket of water. The third time the plants are fed during the flowering period - 15 ml of Agricola solution per bucket of water.
• Do not forget to periodically loosen the ground, especially after rain and watering. Thus, moisture will not linger. In addition, during weeding, all weeds should be removed and faded shoots should be removed.

Advice! It is recommended to cut the stems at a height of about 12 cm from the ground. Thanks to this event, in about a month, the carnation will release new shoots, which, under favorable conditions, will be able to bloom a second time - in the fall!

Turkish carnation is characterized by high frost resistance and, under a 10 cm layer of peat, survives the winter quite well.

In general, if weather are favorable, then the life of the plant can be about six years, in less good circumstances - no more than three years

At home

If you decide to grow Turkish cloves at home, then it is advisable to use a substrate with a neutral pH level for this. In this case suitable option will be a mixture of one part of leafy soil, one part of sand, one part of peat and two parts of soddy soil. Before planting plants, the soil is disinfected with a solution of potassium permanganate.

• Seedlings are planted in such a way that the neck remains above the surface of the substrate.
• During the formation of the sixth pair of true leaves, the plant is pinched - this will allow you to get a more lush bush.
• In the conditions of an apartment, a Turkish carnation can grow in partial shade and neither its decorative effect nor its state of health will suffer. The optimum temperature is +15..18°C.
• Watering should be plentiful. Make sure that the earthen ball in the pot does not dry out, but at the same time there should be no stagnation of moisture. For irrigation, it is better to use soft water at room temperature.
• In the heat, it is recommended to spray the plant, preferably in the evening.
• A month after planting, care for Turkish cloves is supplemented by fertilization. In this case, complex mineral fertilizers for flowering plants should be used. They are introduced every ten days, from spring until October. In winter, flowers do not need top dressing.

Disease and pest control

Turkish cloves are susceptible to some viral and fungal diseases. Among them:

• Fusarium. The main signs are: yellowing of the leaves, which wither, but do not fall off, the stem turns reddish or brown, the buds open weakly or do not open at all, the root part and the root itself rot. Sick plants are destroyed, healthy ones are sprayed twice with a fungicide.
• Rust. It appears as brown spots on the leaves, petioles and stems of the plant. The spots swell and become yellowish. The flower looks oppressed, the stem dries up and breaks. The spread of the disease is facilitated by waterlogging of the substrate, potassium deficiency and excess nitrogen. For the treatment of the disease, a 1% solution of Bordeaux liquid, the drug "HOM" or another fungicide of a similar effect is used.
• Mottling. Often, plants become infected in the spring. The disease manifests itself in the form of blurry spots on the foliage, variegation and changes in the shape of flowers. There is currently no cure, so diseased specimens are destroyed.

It is necessary to inspect the flowers regularly - this will help protect your blooming collection from death.

Earwigs often appear on the site. They are destroyed with the help of such baits: lay out several heaps of rotted hay in the garden and cover them with planks. After a while, pests will crawl into these shelters to hide from the heat, where they can be easily destroyed.

At home, Turkish cloves can be attacked by spider mites, mealybug or aphids. To control pests, a soapy solution is often used, which is used to wash adults from the body of the plant. Then the affected specimens are sprayed with infusion of yarrow, celandine or tansy. In severe infestation, the use of insecticides is recommended.

H