Rockin’™ Red Dianthus Seeds

Would you look at this big, tall, bushy Rockin’™ Red Dianthus. No shrinking violet, Rockin’™ Red Dianthus is as vigorous and determined to bloom as its size would indicate. And the flowers are gorgeous—neatly serrated and suffused with fire-engine-red petals around a small rosy-pink eye. Best of all is that this interspecific hybrid is prepared to overwinter all the way through zone 5 in the north. No more buying new plants for a few years.

Rockin’™ Red Dianthus is a cross of D. barbatus (the beloved Bachelor’s Button) with other species, and Rockin’™ Red Dianthus has the best merits of all of them. The blooms are incredibly profuse in sunny to partly shaded settings. Cut them for the vase and their subtle clove-like scent really comes into its own indoors; let them stay in the garden and they are a siren for butterflies. Rockin’™ Red Dianthus is so tall, sturdy, and profuse.

And Rockin’™ Red Dianthus backs up all that beauty with superior garden performance. Rockin’™ Red Dianthus grows robustly and puts up with environmental challenges from heat and humidity to poor soil, reaching 18 to 24 inches high (seriously) and up to a foot wide. When winter comes, Rockin’™ Red Dianthus will die back in colder areas, but pop right up again in spring. At last, a dianthus that can survive severe weather like a true perennial.

Deer leave Rockin’™ Red Dianthus alone, but pollinators adore Rockin’™ Red Dianthus. And the seed is easy to start in the Bio Dome indoors in late winter or in the garden after danger of frost. Rockin’™ Red Dianthus likes full sun in the north, dappled or part shade farther south and west.