How to Prune Carnations

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment I am going to talk about how to prune carnations. Now there is many different types of plants that are related to carnations and they all grow about the same. They like full sun and they'll do really well but there is times of the year when they're blooming and done blooming that they look really ratty and you think that you have killed them and that they don't look good so what do you do? How do you prune them? So my philosophy on any plant if it has ratty brown or icky greenery on it trim it back to the part that looks good and then that way it will come up and fill up again. So as these dianthus keep blooming, they are carnations related they'll just send out seeds. Now you can just pinch those out as they get done blooming or a lot of times they will pull too much so it is easier to trim with scissors and I'll just trim any of the ratty looking starts out and it seems the more you trim the more blooms they give you so it's very good to trim them back here and there so wherever they look ratty just trim them down. But make sure you leave some leaves from the bottom and even some roots, because then they'll shoot up more starts but here and there I just like to trim out a few of the dead leaves and then the flower seeds you can save those seeds and start them again the next Spring or even just plant them in the same area, just make a bigger and bigger clump. So remember to keep trimming out the old flowers on your carnations especially if they get long and lanky they probably need more sun but the thing is once you trim out the ratty looking flowers it makes room for the new flowers to grow so you really can't prune a carnation too much. As long as it has got some roots and some sun and some greenery on the bottom of it it will keep growing blooms.