Growing Nicely

gardening, sustainability, growing food, plants and flowers.

  • Home
  • About
  • Garden Writing
  • Garden Services
    • A Garden Consultation to Reveal the Beauty of your Garden.
  • The Blog
    • Sustainable Gardening
    • Growing Food
    • Gardening & Plants
    • Garden Design
    • Garden Visits
  • Contact Me

How To Grow The Best Sweet Peas.

February 22, 2019 By Jill Anderson 2 Comments

I’m dreaming of a billowing row of divinely scented, colourful sweet peas, lasting all summer long. So here’s the plan to help you grow the best sweet peas, & to have as many flowers as possible.

How To Grow The Best Sweet Peas - red/purple sweet pea flowers

This variety is called Cupani, wonderful colours & a strong scent.

How To Sow Sweet Peas:

Fill pots with good, peat-free compost, lightly water the compost to make it damp then sow a couple of seeds in each pot, pushing them in about an inch. Discard the weakest plant, I know, it seems a bit hard-hearted, but its the best method of getting good, strong plants.

Root trainers are ideal to allow plenty of space for the long roots of sweet peas. You can make your own paper pots by wrapping paper round a narrow bottle, beer bottles are good for this. You don’t need a special wooden shape to make them. Either way this is a sustainable solution to planting, & we like that.

Set them in a covered heated propagator until they germinate, or cover the pots with damp newspaper & keep them somewhere warm. Peek at them every day & move them to your most light-filled window ledge as soon as they germinate.

The first pair pair of leaves to appear are seed leaves, the next ones are the true leaves, they look exactly like the leaves of that plant should. When there are at least 2 pairs of true leaves, pinch the top of the seedling off between your thumb nail & first finger. This encourages a bushier plant & eventually more flowers.

They can be moved to a cold greenhouse at this stage, but wait for a sunny day so the shock isn’t too great for them. After 4-6 weeks they can go into a cold-frame to get them more used to being outside  ( this is hardening-off ).

Keep the soil damp, not too wet, as they grow.

How To Grow The Best Sweet Peas.- sweet pea flowers growing up a bamboo teepee

Preparation:

Meanwhile, prepare the bed where they will eventually be planted. Remove any weeds, & add plenty of compost/soil improver/well-rotted farmyard manure to improve the quality of the soil. This makes it all less likely to dry out in summer.  Set up a frame ready for them to climb on. Getting this all ready in advance is key, because it’ll be a busy time in the garden when they need planting out. 

Mine will be planted outside at the beginning of April, this is always such a relief as space in the greenhouse is getting tight by then. Tie the small plants into your frame-work as they start to grow, checking them as they get bigger to prevent tangling.

The easy part of all this is picking the flowers regularly as they grow. This frustrates the plants into making more flowers, on its mission to produce seed & continue the species.

I recently came across Grace Alexander on Instagram, they sell flower seed & have some lovely sweet pea varieties. Also their website is a dream to browse, go & have look.

How to make your own paper flower pots on the Gardeners World website, here. 

What needs doing in the garden in February here.

Let me know if you have any tips for growing sweet peas, you can leave a comment below.

Happy gardening.

Jill

All photos: Jill Anderson.

Related posts:

late flowersing, Sedum spectabile, ice plantLate summer flowering plants bare-root fruit trees, www.growingnicely.co.ukReasons to choose bare-root plants What to do in your garden in March, La Vie de Bruxelles damask rose,What to do in your garden in March Default ThumbnailA tree & a cool green & white planting theme

Related posts:

late flowersing, Sedum spectabile, ice plantLate summer flowering plants bare-root fruit trees, www.growingnicely.co.ukReasons to choose bare-root plants What to do in your garden in March, La Vie de Bruxelles damask rose,What to do in your garden in March Default ThumbnailA tree & a cool green & white planting theme
Filed Under: Blog, Gardening, Plants Tagged With: how to grow the best sweet peas, scented flowers

Never Miss A Post

Subscribe for updates to be delivered straight to your inbox.

Comments

  1. Verycrochetty says

    February 25, 2019 at 4:52 pm

    I’m interested to hear you plant out in April… Whereabouts are you? I’m in the North West of the UK on the coast – our last frost date is usually 2nd week of May but we seldom have frost after mid April… So I’m wondering if I could plant my sweet peas out then too!

    Reply
    • Jill Anderson says

      February 28, 2019 at 12:11 pm

      Hi, Our garden is in Surrey, so warmer than yours, its a sheltered space & in a town, so that all helps. You could plant out some plants, butt keep a few back just in case, & have fleece at the ready… just in case! Its a balance isn’t it, between having flowers as soon as possible & not getting hit by frost. Good luck! ….. & thanks for reading & leaving a comment.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

plants-gardens-growing-eating

Jill-profile image

Hello, I’m Jill Anderson.
This is where you’ll find good, solid information about gardening, growing fruit & vegetables and how to keep it all looking good.
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
The healing, calming power of nature in one photo. The healing, calming power of nature in one photo.
These wonderful autumn colours won’t be around for much longer. But that’s ok, because now is what matters, & their fleeting beauty makes them even more precious.
It’s easy to see how being among trees & nature is so beneficial for our health & wellbeing. 
Have a great Sunday.
Savouring all the autumn colour, & doesn’t it lo Savouring all the autumn colour, & doesn’t it look spectacular with this bold front door.
Today has been hard work, after a lovely time last week in Norfolk. The north coast there is spectacular. Realising these last few months, that there are so many beautiful places here. 
Have a nice evening.
Charming glasshouse at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Vis Charming glasshouse at Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Visiting to see the Anish Kapoor sculptures, which are amazing, but unprepared for the beauty of the grounds & garden. 
Such a treat, worth coming to Norfolk for this alone!
Hope you’re keeping well, & managing to smile some of the time. x
P.S. more of Houghton Hall & Anish Kapoor on my stories
We stopped off on the way home to pick blackberrie We stopped off on the way home to pick blackberries, after coffee & cake, sitting in the churchyard - the cafe was full, & the churchyard is a quiet, peaceful spot..... as you’d expect.
-
One little advantage of lockdown is walking so much more, rather than using the car. Though it shouldn’t have taken something as momentous as this, for me to change bad habits 🙁
Hope you’re weekend is going well.
My hazel arch, a bit lopsided 🙄 using wood from My hazel arch, a bit lopsided 🙄 using wood from a random clump of hazel on the garden. Now looking much better covered in winter squash plants, so you can’t see just how ramshackle it is. I like to think it has a certain home-spun charm .

Great for small space gardening, imagine how much room you need to grow these without vertical supports.

I’ve got 2 Uchiki kuri, lovely nutty flavour.
1 Turks turban, for its flamboyant shape & colours, though it also tastes good.
One unknown, grown by my grandsons in their homeschooled science lesson.
Close-ups of the squash over on my stories.
Stay cool my friends x
I wanted to show you this lovely lily ( Lilium reg I wanted to show you this lovely lily ( Lilium regale) which is flowering right outside our bedroom window. 
It gets sun for about 4 hours only, you can order the bulbs now for planting in September. It’ll reappear every year & waft delicious scent around your garden, or through your windows.
Have a very happy Monday x
It’s British Flower Week, there’s a lot to be It’s British Flower Week, there’s a lot to be said for fabulous seasonal flowers that haven’t travelled thousands of miles ...... & are wonderful for biodiversity
A bit of rain, nice long days (it’s almost mid-s A bit of rain, nice long days (it’s almost mid-summer!) & it’s, mostly, all growing nicely.

Spinach, courgettes & garlic in shot here. 
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday x
Hope is a decision I’ve thought long & hard abou Hope is a decision
I’ve thought long & hard about how to view the tumult in the world we’re living in now. 
The only thing that works for me, is to choose hope.

It’s a tall order, but avoiding mainstream news & speculation helps avoid the anxiety, that’s often waiting in the wings.

One day soon there’ll be grandchildren clambering over this again.
Follow on Instagram

Don't miss any posts!

Enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts.

Archive

Copyright © 2021 Growing Nicely | Privacy Policy

Please note this website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent for cookies to be used. For further information on use of cookies please refer to our privacy policy Find out more.