How was your sweet peas ?

How was your sweet peas this year ?
this year i was all prepared for a bumper harvest of sweet peas. i had a six foot fence which i had extended the height by an extra 2 foot and i covered the whole fence with a black plastic mesh for the sweet peas to climb up. the sweet pea stocks grew and grew.
they did not start to flower till about six feet. they then continued to grow to over eight foot . the sweet peas where facing West and normally at this time of year we have westerly wind so the wind was blowing directly at the sweet peas which had all the support of the eight foot fence and the plastic mesh :thumb:. then DISASTER :(
The winds and gales started blowing from the East to west :(.
All the top of the plants ,about four foot, folded over to the lower four feet with the strong gales.. it has not put me off growing Sweet Peas ,but next year i will be looking for a variety that does not grow so tall. a little add on ,some of the plants had reached
ten foot tall. music .

 

Mine have been pretty poor, to be honest. Floppy and sprawling and not flowering particularly well. Strange how gardening works - I did nothing different from last year when they were brilliant.

Still getting plenty of cut flowers for the house, mind. They just don't look great in the garden.

 

I think this is the last year I'll do sweet peas. Too much of a faff, having to constantly tie them in and to keep cutting them to prevent seeding. I love them, but I also love to see the garden full of colour - having to cut them all the time to encourage more blooms is a bit pointless, as I'm not really a cut flowers sort of person.

I will continue with their perennial relations however. No scent as such, but a fabulous display, no need to keep cutting them and they come back next year!

 

In one word ? Rubbish :(

 

Thought mine were going to be rubbish as it took them ages to get going, but the main wigwam has been full of blooms for weeks now and looks like going on for weeks more. We get lots of wind here; like the rest of the plants in the garden once they're established they have to fend for themselves, so I don't tie them in once they've found the supports. They are doing OK; some have flopped a bit but are twining themselves round the base of the wigwam very prettily! Of the other two sites, where I put the spares, one has a fair amount of bloom but at the other I had to cut the sweet peas down a couple of weeks ago and remove them because they were finished. They were having to compete with a very vigorous honeysuckle though.

 

Very well considering I had them in pots this year because of the delay with erecting adequate support.

 

Mine have been great, first time i have grown them. They were in a relatively shadey area of the garden too. I have taken about three or four lots of flowers off and they are still going. I am letting them die down to seed now though.

 

Mine are still doing well. Not exhibition stuff but beautifully scented and pretty growing on this arch.
I don't cut the flowers. I let the flowers go over then cut the dead heads before they go to seed pods. That keeps them flowering.
View attachment 2724

 

Your sweet peas look gorgeous, Alice. I never have any luck with them. They seem to need a lot of water and feeding and in addition snails seem to love them. Unfortunately I have more than my fair share of snails. However, I visited the vegetable garden at Sissinghurst this summer and it had a wonderful display of old-fashioned 'Matucana' sweet peas scrambling over a twiggy wig-wam. They looked and smelt fantastic and were full of pollinating insects. I am quite tempted to give them another go ...

 

Alice, your sweetpeas are fabulous - and a brilliant way to grow them up the sides of that archway.

Apart from the cutting, my main problem is lack of room. I could grow them up a trellis at the back of a herbaceous border, but they'd be left untended after a while, as the border got bigger and prevented me getting to the back.

 

Thank you both for your kind comments.
I only moved into this garden 2 years ago and there was nothing - nothing but gravel and grass.
I have a much smaller garden than I had before and everything has to earn its space - but I think sweet peas will get their space. I think if you can't grow out then grow up.
I know what you mean about getting into the back of big beds Sussexgardener.
I put broken slabs etc for a path at the back of these beds so that I can tiptoe in to get to the stuff growing on the fences.

 

I am surprised that the sweet peas did not start to flower until they were quite tall - mine started at about 2 feet and have gone on to about 6 feet or more. I wonder if they were getting too much nitrogen.
I did not expect much from mine as they were in pots longer than I would have liked - getting the ground ready and putting up support.
i just erected a 20 foot length of netting and planted them at the bottom. I had enough flowers to sell on the Country Market stall in July and I am still selling them. Recently I have been selling 7 bunches of 30 stems each (only the best ones) and they are still going like the clappers. The stems went shorter in the dry spell but I have been having some fantastic stems lengths of late. I grow Spencer mixed and a variety called 'High Scent'. The only problem is that it takes a long time to cut. I religeously cut everything off each Thursday before market. Old flowers, seed pods or very short or twisted on the floor, everything elsae in the box. The wife bunches them and we also get enough to fill the house and mum in laws. I can also pick Monday if i want as well. so mine have been fantastic this year.

 

Geoff it seems like you are growing sweet peas on an industrial scale , well done !
I , like most of the others , have had yet another poor show from the spencer mixed I grew. They seem to flower very high and at the moment look very scruffy - so no sweet peas next year. I am going to try Lofos which grew to 7ft this year and had lovely leaves and flowers. Now Lofos cant decide what it is called ! Are the seeds sold as Asarina , Maurandia or Lophospermum

 

Alice, your sweet peas by the gate are lovely, what a nice way to enter the garden.
This was my first year in ages without sweet peas at home, (along with certain veg too) We are preparing to move at some point this year and I thought that we would have gone by now...wish I had just grown stuff anyway as we are still here and I miss having them.
Harry - I have a Creeping gloxinia, Lophospermum erubescens in a clients garden, which is such a good plant. (if someone would stop changing it's name!) It has grown up a south wall for the last three years. In the autumn, before heavy frosts, when it's dying back I cut back any remaining stems and it spends the winter in her conservatory before going back out in May. I think it would actually overwinter by the south wall with some protection against winter wet and severe frost but haven't risked it.
Next year.....when we have moved :skp: I am going to try some seed and grow it for in my garden.

Julie

 

I shall copy what Blueroses says
robert