How many days should you give a plant

basically some of my sweet peas i sowed were becoming a tad root bound and im sure i read somewhere that was bad. So I deicided to plant the 5 largest out in the bed to see if it was warm enough for them to survive

I did that on wednesday I think so my question is how long does it normally take to show if a plant is struggling and how long should i leave it so that i know for certain that it is ok to plant the others out.

Hope that made sense. i want to get those out asap so i can use the root trainers to sow the everlasting sweet peas. The ones i have sown first were the free pack from ine of the gardeners world mags last year.

 

Hi Dips,
whenever I plant out too early (that is- every year ) 3 things can happen:

• The plants just sit there and do nothing until May
• They are killed by monster frost
• Slugs, greenflies and even magpies have a feast on the soft mollycoddled growth

Can you repot the other plantlets into large pots and grow them on in a sheltered place for a month or so? Blowaway greenhouse is great at this time of the year, but a clear toy box works well too. (If you have kids who would prefer to keep their toy boxes for their toys, you can get cheap ones in Wilkos, or just give the kids a roll of bin liners. )

 

My thoughts on planting out.

Dont do it too early, soil temperature is more important than the odd sunny day.
You can usually judge soil temperature just by watching for weed seeds germinating, I've not seen any yet in my garden.

The other thing is hardening off, nothing likes being put outside from a warm place, ie. greenhouse etc.
So hardening off is very important, even with something tough like sweat peas.
If you dont harden off, even the toughest things will just sit and wait, .........and wait.

As for how long you need to wait?
That is anyone's guess at this time of the year, it mainly up to the weather.

 

Dont worry @pete i have been hardening off for a while they have been living in the cold frame for a month or two so thats been done

Well i have tons of weeds and loads of sycamore seedlings and other seedling popping up all over the place. I cant keep up!!! 5 sycamore seedlings had appeared today in one of the planters that weren't there yesterday.

@Selleri unfortunately i don't have room to repot them the cold frame and greenhouse are full at the moment and I have no kids so therefore no clear toy boxes lol

so far they seem to be coping absolutely fine. but then my garden is dead south facing and its always a lot warmer than anywhere else in solihull which is lovely but often i get tricked into thinking the day is warmer than it is if i have been in the back garden. I then go out in the same clothes and realise it is much colder than i thought lol

 

Sweet peas are pretty tough , normally I plant out end of March. Bit chilly at the moment , in fact I have only just pinched them out and tied them into cane supports yesterday. I'll plant them out Easter weekend . But SPs do just sit there for weeks doing nothing , then they are off !!! If they are looking fairly healthy don't worry

 

yeh they are looking absolutely fine and have seem to have grown a bit and are more upright now they have been planted

I think maybe i will copy out and plant that out on or after the easter weekend depending on my health :-)

To be honest these were freebies so Im not massively bothered in they die.The everlasting sweet peas are the ones that i want to thrive so that I never have to sow them again

 

I put moved some sweet peas from the warmth of indoors to my unheated greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and as a mouse nibbled them down they went straight outside and were fine, and it was a lot colder then than it is now.

 

That is good news

not the mouse bit tho. How annoying is that. I had a problem with slugs trying to eat them in the greenhouse which is why they were moved to the cold frame. so far no slugs have managed to get near

 

I bought some sweet peas from our farm shop, already been hardened off so I planted them straight out about a month ago, they are showing slight signs of getting bushy my own sweet peas which I grew from seed are in the storm porch in a pot, they seem to be doing ok, they get direct sunshine in the morning in there