Lakeshore Garden Centres Plant Finder

Other Names:  Border Pinks, Cheddar Pinks

Group/Class:  Cosmic Series

Description:

Awesome flowers are pinkish white, swirled and splashed with scarlet, above mounds of fine foliage; great for flower arrangements; deadhead to rebloom; pair up with summer blooming perennials and annuals to time a continued flower display

Ornamental Features

Cosmic™ Red Swirl Pinks is smothered in stunning fragrant white frilly flowers with shell pink overtones and scarlet streaks at the ends of the stems from mid spring to late summer. The flowers are excellent for cutting. Its attractive narrow leaves remain bluish-green in colour with hints of silvery blue throughout the year.

Landscape Attributes

Cosmic™ Red Swirl Pinks is an herbaceous annual with a mounded form. It brings an extremely fine and delicate texture to the garden composition and should be used to full effect.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It is a good choice for attracting bees and butterflies to your yard, but is not particularly attractive to deer who tend to leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Cosmic™ Red Swirl Pinks is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Rock/Alpine Gardens
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Cosmic™ Red Swirl Pinks will grow to be about 8 inches tall at maturity extending to 12 inches tall with the flowers, with a spread of 12 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 8 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain low and dense right to the ground. Although it's not a true annual, this plant can be expected to behave as an annual in our climate if left outdoors over the winter, usually needing replacement the following year. As such, gardeners should take into consideration that it will perform differently than it would in its native habitat.

This plant should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. To help this plant achive its best flowering performance, periodically apply a flower-boosting fertilizer from early spring through into the active growing season. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

Cosmic™ Red Swirl Pinks is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers and foliage against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.