Flower of the Week: Carnation

The carnation is one of the most popular cut flowers and is hardly ever absent from any florist’s shops. Additionally, it’s also the soul of both the countryside and many gardens.

In spring and summer, blooming carnations paint endless colors across gardens. If you happen to own a small greenhouse, they can even bloom three times a year.

Carnations originated from the Mediterranea, where people began selecting and cultivating the flowers as early as 2,000 years ago. Thanks to self-breeding and repeated hybridization of relative species, carnations today are brightly and variedly colored, lushly and gracefully shaped, and rich in varieties that suit either potting or garden planting, many of which are mature cut flower varieties. It’s an easy task to find a variety that resonates with your heart.

The Flower for Mother's Day

The carnation has been tied to maternal love for a long time. According to a Christian legend, carnations showed up on Earth when Jesus marched with the cross on his back. Maria, the Holy Mother, saw Jesus’ suffering and shed tears. When the teardrops touched the earth, carnations sprouted. Since then, pink carnations have symbolized eternal maternal love in people’s hearts.

In 1907, an American named Anna Jarvis chose white carnations to commemorate her late mother. She did this because carnation was her mother’s favorite flower and white signifies the selflessness of maternal love. Under her lobbying, the bill to create a Mother’s Day was approved in 1914.

In the decades to follow, marketing derailed the holiday from its original intent. White carnations became more and more expensive, and to promote sales of carnations in other colors, florists began a campaign touting concepts like “white carnations are for late mothers; a mother should receive red or pink carnations when she’s alive”. For a moment, Anna Jarvis resented those commercial campaigns, but the “new tradition” nonetheless rooted in people’s minds and was passed down for generations.

Beyond Mother's Day

As popular fresh cut flowers, carnations found many more occasions to shine than just Mother’s Day. Cut flowers, in fact, are almost as versatile as roses.

The green carnation is one of just a few reliable and cost-friendly green cut flowers, thus they are associated with the very green St. Patrick’s Day. On this special day, Irish people all over the world wear green carnations to honor their homeland – Ireland. The country is lovingly nicknamed “the Emerald Island”.

Meanwhile, the red carnation is the symbol of the international labor movement, so it’s never absent from the May 1st celebration of International Workers’ Day. Celebrating this holiday is a custom popular in Austria, Italy, and the former Yugoslavs. In some of the formerly socialist European countries, the red carnation is also an appropriate gift on March 8th for International Women’s Day, a custom that lives on to this day in certain regions.

At Oxford University, wearing carnations to take exams is an essential ritual. Students are supposed to wear white carnations for the first exam and red ones for the last, while pink carnations are for all the exams in between. The story goes that initially, a student put a white carnation in an ink bottle filled with red ink, and the flower gradually became dyed red during the exams.

Oscar Wilde and Carnations

Oscar Wilde, the renowned poet was also a big fan of carnations and a man who’d never let go of any chance to make life a bit prettier. His Irish background endeared him more fondly to green carnations.

When his first comedy, Lady Windermere’s Fan, debuted, Wilde let an actor pin a green carnation on his collar point and encouraged every audience to come to the theater wearing a green carnation. After that, the green carnation slowly turned into one of Oscar Wilde’s signature symbols.

Sadly, people back then took advantage of the green carnation image in their attack against Oscar Wilde, targeting his unaccepted homosexuality in that conservative era. Robert Hichens mocked Wilde’s “inappropriate” relationships with young male lovers in his novel, The Green Carnation. Noël Coward also arranged a song called We All Wear a Green Carnation in his most famous musical, Bitter Sweet.

However, that time has passed and circumstances have now changed. The negative images associated with homosexuality are gradually fading away, and green carnations have become a positive symbol of the LGBTQ community. More and more gay people and allies now wear green carnations with pride.

Can I Grow Carnations?

Carnation cultivars are rich in varieties. For beginners, the varieties suitable for potting or garden planting are easier to start with. In general, whether carnations grow well highly depends on the environment, in which the most key factors are soil and temperature.

Loose and fertile soil with good water drainage allows the plant’s root system to grow adequately. Sandy loam is one of the best soil choices, while heavy clay soil is less friendly.

Carnation is relatively demanding when it comes to temperature. It likes cooler environments, and the best temperature range for its growth is between 19-21°C. Overly hot or cold temperatures could both lead to growth slowing or even ceasing. To guarantee the best growing environment, the temperature variation between day and night should also be controlled to stay within 10°C.

Under the proper temperature and lighting, carnations can flourish. Sufficient sunlight can promote early blooming and also facilitate more flower bud differentiation. Therefore, remember to expose your carnations to plenty of sunshine!

Size: 80-150 cm in height

Hardiness: USDA Hardiness Zone 3-9

Light duration: Full sun

Soil: Well-drained fertile and loose soil, neutral to slightly alkaline

Bloom time: Mid-spring through summer