Hitting the sweet spot
If you want a fragrant bloom that keeps on giving, go for sweet peas
SWEET peas are easy, both from seed or young plants, and they’re a delight. This year, I promised myself the best crop ever as Covid kept me at home to sow them, plant them out, tie them in and deadhead, ensuring sweetly scented flowers all summer long – and a little beyond.
It started so well. The peas were climbing vigorously over the bamboo teepee and producing fresh flowers daily. Small posies of these deliciously scented blossoms starting appearing around the house.
And then the visitors arrived – three rescue hens, bedraggled, bewildered and blinking at their new home. I’d fenced off an area for them to roam around and made it as fox free as possible. And I figured plants and hens would, in the main, co-exist happily.
It wasn’t to be. The hens were happy, producing eggs from the second day, but as they picked and pecked their way around their new lodgings, they bypassed much of our garden plants and feasted on the sweet pea. Overnight my plants were gone.
No matter, the hens are thriving and it’s time to start again. And November is a good time to sow sweet peas.
By next spring you’ll have healthy seedlings raring to go when planted out in April or even in May in colder areas. It’s not that they are tender but planting outside any earlier, except under cover, will be a slow start for them.
And while I won’t be positioning them near the hens next year, slugs and snails are also voracious feeders so you want them to establish themselves quickly.
That said, there’s no harm at all in doing a spring batch as well and if you don’t have room for overwintering seedlings, then you can also sow straight into the ground next spring or, easier still, pick up some seedlings from the garden centre.
So what do you need to do? There are various schools of thought that recommend treating seeds before sowing to speed up germination. This includes soaking overnight (but this carries a risk of rotting) or nicking them with a penknife.
I don’t think either is necessary as sweet peas germinate easily enough. They need a temperature of about 15C to do so and take about a fortnight.
Ideally you will grow them in root trainers – which are longer than usual pots – to allow good root development.
A good trick if you want to avoid disturbing the roots next spring when you go to plant them outdoors, is to plant in biodegradable pots that will disintegrate in the soil.
A handy household version of this is a loo roll or kitchen roll cut in two that you can sit in trays.
If using root trainers, sow one seed per cell. A loo roll will take one or two seeds, otherwise six to eight seeds in a five-inch pot.
Cover the seeds with about half an inch of growing medium. Water with a fine rose, cover with a sheet of glass or plastic and leave to germinate.
Once germinated, move to a cold frame or greenhouse for the winter and if mice are a problem, you’ll need to protect your seedlings with wire mesh or netting.
In spring you can plant in position in a good humus-rich, moistureretentive fertile soil in a south-facing position and provide support in the form of canes or trellis. I usually put in two or three seedlings per cane – any more can get a bit crowded.
When it comes to choosing varieties, Spencer sweet peas are your best bet for cut flowers as they have long, straight stems and large, frilly, scented flowers.
Old-fashioned varieties are daintier but intensely fragranced – ‘Matucana’ is one of the sweetest.
Perennial sweet peas have the benefit of returning year after year but they lack any real fragrance.
If you’re tight on space, even the smallest of areas can have room for sweet peas, with the development of dwarf varieties. They perform extremely well in containers and hanging baskets or even as a bit of ground cover in a border.