The alpine Dianthus are amongst the staples of the rock garden, providing lots of reliable colour after the first flush of spring flowers has passed. They form neat cushions of thin, pointed leaves, blue-grey in the majority of species, and have short stems, each with a few, wide-open, five-petalled flowers, mostly in the white-pink-red colour range. With over 100 European species, identification is often tricky.

Dianthus arpadianus var. pumilus is a really good rock garden plant, although it comes from rocky slopes in the eastern Mediterranean. It makes tight cushion of prickly, grey-green leaves, and has lots of short stems carrying one or two pale pink flowers.