Blooming carnations will be a great decoration for your balcony. It is not difficult to grow it, but it is important to know some of the nuances.
When buying seeds, it is important to see if this is an annual plant or a biennial, since the second option will bloom only next year.
To extend the colorful decoration of the balcony, it is better to plant several different varieties of carnations at once, since each of them has its own flowering period.
It is best to plant seeds in mid-April in a loose substrate with the addition of 15-20% clay and 15% sand, treated with a fungicide. You can use sowing cassettes: place one seed in each cell, sprinkle a little with substrate and cover with cellophane. Further, the crops should be regularly ventilated. Seeds germinate in 7-10 days at a temperature of 19 to 23 degrees. When sprouts appear, the cellophane film must be removed during the day, and covered again at night (this should be done until all the seeds have sprout).
Watering the crops should be done carefully and in moderation, and when the cotyledons appear, reduce watering, but do not allow the soil to dry out. For better flowering and a bright green color of the leaves, during this period, during watering, you can start feeding with nitrogen (0.05%), and when real leaves appear, double the dose.
After 4-5 weeks (in June), when the daytime temperature is from 18 to 21 degrees, and the nighttime temperature is from 11 to 15 degrees, transplant the plants into balcony boxes at a distance of 10 cm from each other. To make the carnation bushes grow dense and compact, you can periodically pinch the tops of the shoots.
