Sweet Peas – all you need to know

Whoo hoo it’s nearly time to get cracking on your sweet pea journey! There must be a reason why sweet peas beat roses in a recent poll on the UK’s favourite flower. 

Personally I think it’s because there is a degree of skill needed to grow them, (which would also explain why Caroline has varying success with hers). So there is both the enjoyment of the flower and a sense of achievement involved……

Germinating sweet pea seeds on damp paper towel in the kitchen is a comforting ritual at this time of the year and is the first step in the annual journey to have a supply of these gorgeous flowers for cutting. The full ‘Growbag Method’ is explained in our popular video at the end of this blog.

But which seeds to choose? There are so many cultivars available nowadays but in essence you have three groups to choose from: the old-fashioned ‘heirloom grandiflora’ cultivars which tend to have smallish flowers but wonderful scent, the larger flowered Spencer types with more frills and flounces but less scent, then finally the ‘modern grandifloras’ in which the plant breeders have got to work to produce highly scented blooms that have larger and more showy flowers that the original heirloom grandifloras.

More choices exist on where to plant them out. Growing in pots can work well if you remember that they need copious food and water, but I find I get a longer flowering season from them if I plant them in the ground where nature takes over these maintenance tasks.

I prefer nobbly hazel bean sticks to smooth bamboo canes to support the growing plants and you need to be assiduous in tying in the young growth to get evenly covered tepees. Choose a site with good rich soil, shelter from the wind and not in full glare of the midday sun.

Weekly picking of every bloom including the spent flowers and developing seed pods is the way to keep the show going on all summer.

For the botanically curious amongst you (which instantly rules out my two sisters) there are other annual sweet pea species to experiment with using the same growing techniques. Lathyrus sativus is a gorgeous pale blue and the seeds are said to have originated from some found in Tutankhamen’s tomb. Lathyrus nervosum, Lord Andon’s pea, is a stronger slate blue, and a recent discovery, Lathyrus belinensis is a startling red veined yellow.

Blimey, Laura, I think you might have just dissed every ardent rose fan in the country by implying that growing them well needs very little skill 😂 !  Of course, I do love a sweet pea myself, and let’s not forget that a decade ago, I persuaded a heap of friends in our home town to grow sweet peas for our daughter’s July wedding (some succeeded, some failed and some DEFINITELY cheated!)

There is a lot of faff involved in growing the annual ones though, isn’t there. All the mumbo-jumbo about how to germinate them pot them on, plant them out, train them in, deadhead them constantly etc, etc. And these days, though I usually have a go with a few of the annual varieties, I have come to love some of the perennial sweet pea varieties which need a lot less cossetting.  

Not many of these perennials are very showy though Lathyrus latifolius has quite a colour, doesn’t it!  

And sadly, most of them have little scent, but I adore the way that they quietly ramble amongst other border plants or up supports sporting their pretty little flowers and attracting bees all through the summer. With some of my sweet pea patches, I can hear them before I see them! They are a wonderful and easy-to-maintain addition to a veg plot edge because they will lure in the pollinators needed for the vegetables.

To get perennial sweet peas started you can follow all the rules that Laura has given you.  But once you’ve planted them out (full sun is needed for the best flowering), they are so much less hassle than the annuals.  They like some water in dry weather, and a bit of tomato fertiliser wouldn’t go amiss but not essential.  

At the end of the summer, I just cut down all the tangled top growth, and let the roots sit out the winter in the ground before they start to sprout again in spring.  Being legumes essentially, the nodules on the roots even lock some nitrogen into the soil (there you are Laura, I’ve even thrown in a touch of science).  Win, win!

I honestly didn’t know there was so much to sweet peas but I do know Laura hasn’t told you that germinating the little blighters in those Chinese takeway Tupperware boxes requires some discipline. It doesn’t work if you pack ‘em in like sardines because they damp off faster than you can say ‘oh bollocks’. 

Just put a few, spaced out, in each container to ensure success (if you think this is a ‘note to self’ you’d be right). And please don’t feel in any way inadequate if you opt to buy them as seedlings, you’ll be saving yourself from irritating your inept garden visitors with that smug ‘and I germinated them myself’ codicil, and I should know with sisters like mine.

It’s why my ears pricked up this week at the Garden Press Event in London when Marshalls Garden told us about their new super-duper sweet pea called ‘Wings of Blue’ which will only ONLY be available as seedlings because it’s so new.

Ever on the look out for ‘new plant’ one-up-manship, I discovered their sniff level is almost off the radar and pre-ordering now you can get about 90 seedlings in April for under £20. 

I’m in. Particularly since our cooler climate here ‘oop north’ means they’ll bloom months’ longer than they will for my sisters.

The prospect of the summer just got even more exciting 🤗

PS If you want to join me in this wheeze you can preorder the plugs here

Here is the link to Laura’s video on how to grow stupendous sweet peas.

We had another fascinating and enjoyable day at the annual Horticultural Press Event in London this week, looking at the latest trends and products in gardening. Click on this link to find the write-up, and this one for a short video. Thank you so much to all the wonderful tradespeople we talked to that day!

Would you like a shrub or small tree that gives you a haze of yellow flowers in late winter (a magnet for early-foraging bees) and a mass of glossy red berries in early autumn beloved by birds? Who wouldn’t! Then check out Louise’s lovely Great Plant this Month:

If you’re tidying up your garden this spring, this is the perfect tool for raking leaves and debris from around your plants – find this shrub and border rake in our online shop:

And don’t forget our great Bag a Bargain page, where you’ll see that we’ve found some super deals for you from Muck Boots to plants…..