Help with sweet peas, please.

[dovehouse]

My son is getting married in Suffolk in August and his fiancée is hoping to have sweet peas everywhere. We are going to try to grow them ourselves, but are slightly worried, having read the desperate pleas of another bride-to-be in an earlier forum, who was very unsuccessful with her attempts. I would be very grateful if anyone could give any help with the best way to grow sweet peas. If all else fails, we would also welcome suggestions about where we could buy or beg some for their special day.

[shushkin!]

Hi Dovehouse

They grow loads of them around the allotments near me, supported on pea nets and they look and smell gorgeous for months. I have just soaked some seed actually and sown them in roottrainers with ordinary well drained compost. Soak the seeds over night and chip them if need be so that they swell up. The seeds should take about 10 days to germinate. Sweet peas dont need much heat at all. Actually if they get too warm they wont germinate. I will then over winter them in my cold greenhouse. You have to be careful with all the legumes though as mice will nab the seeds for munchies if you are not careful.
I put the young plants up out of harms way in the greenhouse.
Once the worst of winter is over, I will plant them in a long row down my lotty. I also like to make a pyramid of canes in large pots to place on my patio.
This seems to work for me.

[Two_Sheds]

Sweet peas are so easy to grow.
Timing them for August is slightly trickier.

[Two_Sheds]

I would get everybody you know, to grow them for you - you need long-stemmed fragrant varieties for starters, in the right colour ...

I find they only last a day in a vase, lovely though they are while they last

[nick the grief]

Hi Dove house,

Roger Parsons has a good list of varieties as does Owl Acres both on the web.

You sow them now and can keep them in a coldframe (Mice can be a problem) or you can sow them in spring and they'll flower a bit later but should be OK for August. Any Idea what colours you want and then we could suggest some for you.

Some of my Scented favourites are

Albutt blue - White with a blue wire picotee edge (Scented)
Anniversary - White with pink picotee edge
Gwendoline - Magenta Pink

How about Honeymoon - White with a lavender blush

There are others but they are Dark Maroons, Blues and the like and I don't know what colours you want.

Hope that helps

[dovehouse]

Hi Nick,
Many thanks for the suggestions. I think my lovely future daughter-in-law would like pastel shades and those with the best fragrance as we are hoping to fill the venue with the scent of sweet peas. Honeymoon sounds very romantic and apt, too. Any further suggestions would be much appreciated.

Best wishes.

[jackie j]

I grew some last year and they were great but mine came as plants in the spring from B&Q they were reduced so you could try that option as well.

[dovehouse]

Hi Jackie, Do you happen to remember when they were at their best and most prolific? The wedding is on 22 August, and some posts seem to suggest that it might be a little late.

[nick the grief]

If you want them for August then sow in spring that will delay them and then keep picking the flowers and they'll keep flowering till the 1st frost (you could always sow some about a month or 5 weeks later as a justin ... Justin case ) I'll have a look at the catalogues for you.

How about you grow a few Pinks as well and add them to the arrangements some of the older ones like Mrs Sinkns, Haytor, Letitia Wyatt and even good old Doris are very scented. the 1st two are whites, letitia wyat is pale pink and Doris is a sort of pale apricot with a pink eye.

[littlepooley]

Just a side note, I bought my sweet peas from the garden centre ready grown - no idea what variety they were though sorry - but they are still going now even though we have had a few frosts, so I would think that you should be able to get a fair few sweet peas for August so long as you keep picking the flowers as soon as they start to keep them going, that's what I did with mine and it's worked a treat. You'll just need loads of plants I would imagine to get plenty of blooms

[jackie j]

I have been racking my brain to remember what the variety was and I just cant, will look at some older posts cos I think I mentioned them. They were fantastic right up till about the end of August and couldnt get to the lottie very often I didnt get many seed pods cos I think someone else had them as they grew over the fence.

Just looked and it was Spencer Mix the smell was very powerful.

[BrideXIII]

I totally failed with sweetpeas this year, which although is a shame for me, could be a bonus for you, i have seeds for next year i shant be bothering with, pm me with you address, you can have them