Pinching out sweet peas & question about seedlings

Hi everyone, just wondering where abouts I should pinch my sweet pea seedlings it's my first attempt at growing them and they look pretty leggy. Also when would be the right time to put largish seedlings such as lupins in the ground, a few of mine have survived my first attempt at over wintering & the weather is fantastic at the moment but I'm worried it may be too risky (last week there was about 5 feet of snow here, :cnfs Any advice welcome.

 

Sweet peas seedlings should be pinched out after the second set of leaves... so follow the stalk up.. go past the first leaves... up to the second and pinch the stalk out of the middle of the second set of leaves. You should be left with two sets of leaves.

Just found this out myself!

I would wait a bit longer for your lupins, until the risk of frosts is past.

 

Hi Freedom Spark. If you have grown Lupins from seed this year, they are unlikely to flower this year. I grow them from seed and keep them in pots till the autumn when I plant them out. This simply leaves space in the border for something else. So I don't see any rush to plant out new seedlings.

However if they are from seed last year, they will flower this year. They are perfectly hardy so really you can put older ones out any time. But the biggest problem (for me) is slugs. I planted some out last autumn and they got eaten. So rather than plant the rest out I left them in pots over the winter in a gravel area, where they seem to have escaped the slugs. I think mine are big enough now to be able to grow faster than the slugs can eat them. Also slugs don't like older tougher stalks.

 

Sorry, just a quick side question - are lupins perennials or biennials?

 

Perennials but some people grow them as biennials as they can look a bit black and dead after flowering. However I have several clumps that were planted last year and look healthy and vibrant now.

 

Thanks Victoria, I've pinched them as you advised, they still look a little on the tall side but hopefully they'll be ok.

So Lupins are perennials then? I was about to dig out a large healthy looking clump yesterday thinking it wouldn't flower again for the third year.

Thanks Peter S, I planted them in the autumn so I may not get any flowers this year but strangely enough every time I've tried lupins from seed they have flowered in their first year, maybe I was just lucky :cnfs: I was so disappointed when I found out hollyhocks don't flower until year two.

 

I have to be honest, I was given two 'first year' lupins last year and advised that they wouldn't flower. I put them out anyway and they both did flower. Also, I don't know if you dead head, but I cut off the flower spikes of the flowers as they started to die at the bottom, and they flowered all summer.

 

Victoria, as SussexG says Lupins are perennial. However I grow them as biennials. I got the idea from Christopher Lloyd's writing in which he said that they went very black and ugly after flowering. And as you can't lift them (they have tap roots) you are left with a mess. Christopher Lloyd's Great Dixter was open to the public and he couldn't afford for the garden to look a mess.

Growing them as biennials is a bit more work, but I grow quite a few plants that way (Lupins, Hesperis, Dianthus barbatus, Campanula medium, Foxgloves, Salvia sclarea, and this year some Echiums), and as a consequence get a double shift in the garden. Biennials usually flower early, then you can replace them with late flowering annuals such as Cosmos and Cleome or with Dahlias and other late flowering perennials. The major problem, apart form the work, is where to store them all.

With me Lupins sown early may flower a bit in autumn. Christopher Lloyd used to sow them as late as August to ensure that they didn't flower in the first year. Though I have never found out if a Lupin that has never flowered is better that one that flowered a bit in the previous year.

Freedom Spark - if you planted Lupins in the autumn this will probably count as their second year and they should flower OK.

 

That's very interesting.

I wonder why mine didn't go black and ugly last year? Is it because I kept them flowering?

 

Very possibly. I did the same to a few last year and I had the same result. But they can leave a bit of a gap in the border, even with careful maintenance.

 

I guess they did go ropey when the frosts have started and everyth8g started dying off - the beauty of perennial beds... when you've had enough of gardening and the autumn hits you can just leave it all to the birds and get ready for Christmas!

 

Yep, a herbaceous border does have that advantage!

However the disadvantage of them is if you want something to look at in the garden over winter, you are a bit limited. Possibly that's why true herbaceous borders have declined (when I say true, I mean the 10, 12 foot wide Victorian borders), as most gardens don't have the space. It's a good idea to have a couple of 'winter interest' plants and shrubs dotted about in that case.

 

Yes agreed, but I think a break from the garden really refreshes your enthusiasm. If it was always as labour intensive as mine is (in the development stage especially) for twelve months of the year I'd have runaway children and no doubt I'd reach burn out.

 

I took the decision not to have any winter flowering plants in my garden. On the grounds that I only wanted my garden to look good during the months when I was going to be in it. On a cold winters day when the curtains are closed and the central heating is on, I couldn't care less what the garden looks like.

Actually, by leaving the stems on my perennials over winter - there is a bit of interest.

 

I have to go out into the garden atleast twice a day to look after the chickens...plus there are my ciggie breaks, so I need something to look at whilst shivering in the cold in the depths of winter.

But most of my garden is herbaceous - flowering from about now until September, with a few lurkers in October.