Dianthus 'KLEDG10119'

Summary

UC Davis is located in Davis, California, this site has a silty clay loam soil and plants are irrigated with potable water. More information about the field sites is located in the Nuts & Bolts section.

This hardy little front-of-the-border perennial surprised us with its performance on moderate levels of irrigation.  At the end of two years it attained an average height and width of 7.3” by 20” (18.5 cm by 50.8 cm).  Only the 20% irrigation treatment was significantly lower than the other treatments during most of the irrigated growing season.  By October, the only significant difference was that the 40% was significantly greater in size than the 80% treatment.  The quality ratings did not coincide with the growth ratings; the 20% treatment had consistently high quality ratings, only lagging behind the other treatments in flowering abundance.  The significantly highest average flowering rating was on the 40% treatment, while the highest average overall appearance rating went to the 60% level. It should be noted that while all the appearance ratings were fairly close, flowering is the best feature of this plant.  The main thing that brought the overall appearance ratings of this Dianthus down was the abundance of dry, brown flower heads left on the plant after flowering. Without these, the grayish foliage makes an attractive dense mound, but to remain attractive this plant must be sheared after each bloom cycle.  We deadheaded in December, April, and June. For us, bloom was heaviest in April and September, but there was some bloom on all the plants from March through October, with at least one treatment’s floral display rating near or above 4.0 each month.  These trends can be seen in Table 9.

Growth and Quality Data

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