I certainly can't speak to your climate issues and have not grown this particular cultivar, but I will tell you from experience that dianthus need good air circulation when it gets hot and humid. The foliage will rot out otherwise.

I can't really help since I haven't grown this (and the dianthus I do have are in pots in the garage) but I wanted to say that this plant really caught my eye in the Select Seed catalog! Very pretty and charming.

Wishing you luck with it!
:)
Dee

I am in zone 5 (WI) I have had a spot of dianthus, not sure which kind, for 7 years now. It is in full sun for 1/2 the day. I have transpalnted it, given it away and it always takes. I gave some to my son in NC and he is growing it there. I have to keep pulling it out of the original spot or it will take over.

I love 'Inchmery'. I grew it at my previous home in a full sun location where it thrived. I love the very bluish foliage that looks good even in winter. It was a little floppy when it bloomed, but not that bad. Sadly I had to leave mine behind, but am glad to see another source for it as the place I originally got mine is now out of business.

Here it is in its second year. It started as a 4 inch pot size.

{{gwi:193984}}

No experience with "Inchmery", but I have all sorts of dianthus and they never fail me (or fail to be delightful plants) here in Zone 4. I've had some in a retaining wall at the back of my patio that are over 30 years old. I will deadhead to extend the blooming period. Most of my gardens are in full sun, drainage is good, and as for soil - I topdress with my home made compost every year and the beds support life so I figure it's average to good.

Cooler climates seem to be ideal for dianthus - where it's hot and dry they tend to produce leggy foliage and few flowers. Mine tend to be very dense plants with profuse blooming, with either continuous or repeat blooming late in the season.

I personally don't do mail ordering preferring to buy local - so don't overlook local garden centers, and, yes, even the big boxes. I found some really nice varieties of Dianthus at Home Depot. And the Dianthus "Chinensis", sold in market packs as summer annuals, are charming too and will often perennialize for me. Those are real handy for filling a gap in a border - but the foliage is dark green as opposed to grey-green.

Ponder - thanks for posting the pic, it's just what I want, both in flower and foliage (I wanted something blueish). Those flowers are lovely!

Dulith: Agree - dianthus are very easy to find, but I wanted Inchmery in particular and had to place an order with Select Seeds anyway, so that's the reason I ordered them.

I love dianthus, but can't seem to get them to survive the winter here. This year, I am trying the dianthus ipswich pinks, which look really lovely, but I am dying for a double form that will be perennial in my area. Years ago I grew dwarf grenadin carnations from seed at my old home, these came back for years. But, now I can't find the seed available for sale. Stoke's carries the taller grenadin type, does anyone know if they are hardy in zone 5? Any other suggestions?

My gramma grew a variety very similar to 'Inchmery', with gray foliage, light pink blooms and a strong clove scent. Her garden was in the Sacramento, California area, and she grew her Dianthus in nearly full shade. I grow assorted Dianthus varieties in the Reno, Nevada area. Predictably, Bath's Pink is healthy to the point of aggressive, but other gray-leaved varieties do fine. My plants are in part shade to full sun, in river rock over clay soil. Other than watering them with everything else, and fertilizing with everything else when I remember (including the cacti, which need water in this very dry climate), I don't provide any special care.

Deadheading helps the appearance of Dianthus after their peak flowering period, restoring the plant to a tidy mound of gray-green needle-like foliage.

I know that Bath's Pink is hardy in Zone 5, because I had equal success with it in Northeast Kansas,but I have no idea about cold tolerance of other varieties other than to say that they do well in my Zone 7 garden.

It doesn't seem to be cold that necessarily does in dianthus, but wet. So I can't grow Zing Rose in a bed, but it naturalizes in the more compacted parts of the lawn. Go figure. At one point I decided the only way to get reliable dianthus was to go the White Flower Farm tent sale and buy up everything they had. Sale perennials were $3 a pot, and they usually had a couple of dianthus varieties. They were already used to the climate, which was the big thing. I've still got most of them, though the only name I remember is Bath's Pink.

A couple of years ago I bought Fenbow Nutmeg Clove seed from T&M. They grew reasonably well, but relatively inexplicibly were deer candy. I think one is still alive. I keep trying to cage it, but the cage keeps falling off.

Inchmary looks like what my Dad used to call clove pinks. Very pretty. I have some seeds of Siberian Blue I would share. It comes back well and will seed down occasionally. Color is periwinkle and a single flower.