Sweet Peas

The sweet pea flower buds should be a pale yellow green . Give them a good feed with whatever you have today and then in a week feed with tomato feed .

 

Hi, TMH
Those buds you mention will soon drop-off and the condition is known as 'bud drop'.

Bud drop usually happens at the start of the flowering period and is mainly caused by variation in temperature (hot days and cold nights). The buds turn yellow/green and fall off when touched.

There is not a lot that you can do about bud drop, you just have to wait until the weather settles and the nights get warmer. Do not feed plants until the buds start to set and flower. You can get this problem more than once in a season.

Bud drop can also be caused by watering with a cold hosepipe - use water that has stood for 24 hours if possible. Leave as much growth on as possible, including tendrils, until it passes.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks very much for the advice, much appreciated.

Another problem that some of my plants have is that the budding leaves have died an the very extreme tips (1 or 2 millimetres or so), so turning dry and brown. The leaves are still growing and opening but the extreme edges towards the tips are brown and slightly crinkled. This has been going on for some times but hasn't affected all of the plants, and it doesn't affect all of the leaves on the same plants.

 

You're welcome. I would just say that after many years of growing sweet peas, this has been (weatherwise) the worst I can remember.

 

Looks like I picked the wrong year for my first attempt then. :(

Ah well, can't be helped - just have to hope for better weather (or emigrate to warmer climes).

So are the brown leaf bud/leaf tips that I mentioned also weather related?

 

I would imagine so, TMH.

 

Ta. Definitely time emigrate.

 

Out of interest, are there any other sweet pea varieties which are just as reliable? Some of other colours for example? (there's nothing wrong with that colour, I'm just thinking of some in addition to those).

 

Interesting, thanks.

 

It's not strictly a sweet pea but I used to grow Lathyrus sativus azureus................


The flowers are small and it lacks fragrance but it is a real gem!

 

Sweet Peas, I really should grow some next year...

 

I've got some coming thru the hedge, they stink

 

I think the phrase you're looking for is... 'wonderfully scented'

 

Smell like a busy day on Denzil avenue in the rush hour