I Love Sweet William
I love the old fashioned, cottage garden plant commonly called Sweet William. Diantus barbatus is easy to grow from seed and although in some places it’s called a perennial, you’re better off thinking of this as a biennial. This plant grows one year, blooms the next and sometimes comes back…usually it self-seeds. Don’t bother with the dwarf variety – it’s wimpy. Grow the real thing and you’ll have flowers from late-May into July, good stems for cutting and sweet, spicy fragrance.
Grow this Dianthus in the perennial garden or cutting garden.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I also love Sweet William.Your red is especially lovely.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Yer, dianthus is a perennial fave isn’t it. Such lovely drifts of colour to brighten any bed. They look so healthy in your garden.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
One of the nice things about this plant is that you never quite know what you’ll get – all pale? Dark pink? Red? Every year it is somewhat different. These grew in my last garden and this spring I will grow more from seed and plant them in some of the beds at Poison Ivy Acres.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I’m lucky in the Pacific Northwest – even the wimpy dwarf ones do well here for some time! I’ve had good luck with them in one of my most challenging sites – a commercial building two blocks from the sea. They bloomed in a planter for like 8 months straight!
I’m with you that the barbatus ones are the closest to a perennial. They really do great.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Seeing your photo brings back good memories. When I was in my teen my parents let me take over the garden patch. I bought seeds and one of the flowers I planted was Sweet William. I re-seeded for several years and I enjoyed it very much!
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I have planted sweet williams already started from a garden center and they seem to come up every year. What I don’t understand is what is meant by the plants reseeding themselves or whatever. I have cut off the tops and transplanted them and they grow again. I love them. Hope you can help. Thanks,
Maureen
July 4th, 2009 at 1:29 am
Maureen,
If you’re deadheading them (cutting off the tops) that is probably extending the life of the parent plant. Usually if a short-lived plant makes a bunch of seeds the parent plant “figures its work is done” and dies off. Do you have the sweet william that grows flower stems about 18 to 20 inches tall? That’s the type I was writing about: Dianthus barbatus. In my gardens this plant self-seeds, so once it’s planted you usually have it as long as the seedlings are not weeded out their first year. The parent plant tends to live two or perhaps three years. In my cutting garden, where I want to be sure that I always have this plant, I grow it from seed every year and plant new ones, much as I do for the Verbascums and foxgloves. Perhaps in some parts of the country Sweet William is more long-lived, and in any case, as all gardeners learn, plants sometimes succeed against all odds, or perform unexpectedly. Thanks for reading Whole Life Gardening!