Debtford Pink (Wild Carnation) Dianthus armeria 50 seeds

Perfect for cottage gardens and wildflower gardens alike.

Growing in the garden it makes a feathery appearance. The tiny blooms being a vivid pop of color that floats atop a grass like stem.  Kind of like a delicate, grassy baby’s breath like carnation. It’s a perfect accent in your borders.  

Cute, compact rosettes, with a small footprint, bear longish stems holding multiple heads of attractively-speckled, deep pink flowers. Unlike most pinks, it will happily self-seed around the garden and will not crowd out other plants as some self-seeders do. It is native to most of Europe, from Portugal north to southern  Today, populations have been introduced to, and have become naturalised in New Zealand and much of North America.

How about this: Although the flowers of many pinks are pink, it is the characteristic "pinked" petals (zigzag-edged, as if cut by a pinking shears) that gave them their name; the flowers, in turn, inspired the word pink as a color name.

Deptford, now a part of London, is where a 1633 botanical book claimed this species grew. However, since that tome said it was a "creeping pink" with leaves lying "flat upon the ground," it seems a different species had been observed. Other languages use different common names.

Whether on purpose or by accident, people have moved plants across the globe. In some cases, these introduced plants escape and can become classified as naturalized, which means they grow and reproduce on their own, out of cultivation. Not all naturalized plants are invasive, and a plant that is invasive in some regions may not be invasive in others.