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Perfect Picotees by Ron Bowers 1994

At a time when Border Carnations seem to be losing popularity I would like to put in a plea for an even less popular type of Carnation, the Picotee.
The Picotee is probably the most beautiful member of the Border family. It is quite easily grown, performing quite well in a 6”pot, although I have known it grown three plants to an 8 or five plants to a 9” pot and producing winning vases. The plants will grow quite well in a mixture of half JI No 3 and half any peat based potting compost. I add extra sand and some limestone poultry grit for extra drainage and lime. An obvious question that always crops up is feeding. I feed Chempak No. 3 and 4 according to the maker’s instructions. I have always maintained that pot grown plants, in soil or peat based composts, do require feed at some period of their life. In the old days when feeding was taboo, most Picotees were poor growers. I am convinced that a correct feeding programme would have saved many of the older varieties for us to grow today. A word of warning, however, over feeding of any of the Dianthus family leads to disaster. Propagation is quite easy by layering. However, should you wish, Picotee cuttings root reasonably well given the same treatment as PF’s.
Looking for a good Exhibition Picotee, one has to look for a strong unbroken laced edge; whether it be a wire edge or the heavier type edge, it must be unbroken. If you look closely you will find many wire edge blooms that are broken, this is termed “beady”. One should not propogate from such plants. The next item is the petalage. The guard petals must be large and flat, forming a complete circle on which to build the finished bloom, achieving this by the petals becoming progressively smaller and finishing with a small crown in the centre. This is perfection. However, flat blooms having no crown are to be judged equally with the crown carrying ones.
Ground colour can be any self colour, but it must be clean. Any of the edge colour running into the ground is a fault. One finds that this fault is very obvious on almost all of the heavy edge types. Health and vigour go without question and the stem must be able to hold up the bloom without support, with a calyx on top holding the petals at 90°. There we have a perfect Picotee.
When showing Picotees freshness must be a priority, as ageing blooms tend to go translucent and lose the strength of the coloured edge. They do of course gain size with old age. Having said that I am most disappointed at the number of old blooms being rewarded by judges at our Shows. Some Judges do not appear to place enough emphasis on freshness which in the Rules accounts for one third of the points and I quote:
“A fresh flower providing it has form is superior to one that is past its peak of perfection.”
Most exhibitors when staging take account of this as they also do about naming the cultivar and are disappointed if these conditions are not considered.