Plant Finder

Moana Nursery High Desert Plant Finder & Guide

Other Names:  Border Pinks, Cheddar Pinks

Description:

Radiant hot pink blooms with frilly margins and deep red centers; has an abundance of fragrance that will attract butterflies; deadhead to encourage reblooming; pair up with summer blooming perennials and annuals to time a continued flower display.

Ornamental Features

Ruby Sparkles Pinks is smothered in stunning fragrant hot pink frilly flowers with dark red centers at the ends of the stems from late spring to mid summer. The flowers are excellent for cutting. Its attractive narrow leaves remain grayish green in color throughout the year.

Landscape Attributes

Ruby Sparkles Pinks is an herbaceous evergreen perennial with a mounded form. It brings an extremely fine and delicate texture to the garden composition and should be used to full effect.

This is a high maintenance plant that will require regular care and upkeep, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It is a good choice for attracting bees and butterflies to your yard, but is not particularly attractive to deer who tend to leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Ruby Sparkles Pinks is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Rock/Alpine Gardens
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Ruby Sparkles Pinks will grow to be only 6 inches tall at maturity extending to 8 inches tall with the flowers, with a spread of 14 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 10 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain low and dense right to the ground. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. As an evegreen perennial, this plant will typically keep its form and foliage year-round.

This plant should only be grown in full sunlight. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It may require supplemental watering during periods of drought or extended heat. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is highly tolerant of urban pollution and will even thrive in inner city environments. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in both summer and winter to conserve soil moisture and protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

Ruby Sparkles Pinks is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers and foliage against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.