by Laurie Burrell
One of the great pleasures in early summer is the arrival of the Sweet Pea flowers and their beautiful sent which gives great pleasure to everyone who you share your bountiful bunches with. They originally came from Sicily in the late seventeenth century and have since remained a popular flower plant to grow by gardeners in the United Kingdom. We are fortunate living in Southern England that we can enjoy sweet pea flow-ers towards the end of May whereas our friends who grow them further North and in Scotland must wait up to three or four weeks later to cut their flowers.
Sweet pea seeds which are easily available in your local gardening centres are of a good quality and the choices they stock are mainly popular varieties and colours their customers tend to purchase. One word of caution in growing your own plants from seeds is that you might lose ten percent of the seeds sown in the seed tray or soil. An alternative and guaranteed way to start is to buy the seeds already raised as a collection of plants in a pot from any good local garden centre.
Seeds are best grown in Root Trainers which are filled with a quantity of good quality seed compost and planted following the sowing guidance detailed by the supplier on their packets. They do not require any heat to propagate the seeds which should start to show shoots in about three weeks, do not over water the soil just moisten it with a fine water spray after planting the seeds. If the compost is to wet, it can cause the seeds to rot before germinating. Mice and birds will appreciate the seeds if you leave the seed trays on the ground or in the open uncovered. An unheated green house with a level raised surface that mice cannot reach you should not have any problems. If you do not have a greenhouse a window ledge in the kitchen or conservatory that faces the morning sun is suitable. When your plants reach about 5 cm tall or are strong enough to han-dle transplant them into single pots of growing compost that you can store in trays or toilet roll tubes filled with compost are also an alternative you can use. Handle the young plants very carefully and try not to disturb their roots too much, I use a pencil as a dibber and try to lower the root down the hole carefully and just lightly firm them in.
We now come to the knotty question of pick-ing the tops of the plants out when they have grown four leaves, one expert recommends this, and another well-known sweet pea expert does not. The reason for picking out is to encourage side shoots to form, and the other view is that they will form naturally if left alone. The theory being when side shoots form and you are ready to plant them out you allow the strongest shoots to grow initially on the plant, and once they have gained strength and are growing well you can then remove the weakest shoot allowing the other to develop on its own.
A good way for the the plants to gain height is to allow them climb up a wigwam of bamboo canes and trying them in loosely with plastic coated wire ties or garden string. As the plants get to about four feet, they will start to develop flower shoots, and soon you will have beautiful flowers for the house. The more you cut the flowers the longer the sweet pea plants will last.