Five Tips for Summer Sweet Pea Success
Sweet peas are not only one of the nation’s favourites summer-flowering plants, but they are a firm favourite with us at Easton Walled Gardens. In fact, we’ve been growing them every year since we started our restoration in 2001, and have been actively selecting the very best to share with visitors.
Sweet Peas have been grown at Easton since Edwardian times
As a result of all this experience, we know exactly how to keep sweet peas flourishing in summer. Here are our five top tips for your sweet peas.
- Get the watering right
Providing consistent watering is key. Sweet peas are thirsty plants so don’t let them go short on moisture as this will quickly shorten their lives. Water need quickly increases as the plants grow and develop; during the hottest times in summer plants should receive daily watering – plants in pots may even require morning and evening waterings. Sweet peas that are too dry wilt quickly and if they are consistently dry, plants develop pale or yellowing foliage with flowering reduced. In addition, they also become susceptible to powdery mildew which is a fungal disease where white patches appear on leaves and stems. It is possible to partially revive dry plants by soaking them if the situation has not gone too far – growth will resume with new side shoots developing, but they never quite return to their previous form.
- Don’t let plants go hungry
For the best sweet peas, feed your plants once a week through the summer with a general-purpose liquid plant feed, or use seaweed fertilizer. This can be watered onto the roots; at Easton Walled Gardens we also apply it to above ground growth as a foliar feed to keep plants in the best condition with flowers all summer long. We’ve have also had great results using plant invigorators on sweet peas, an organic plant wash that, when sprayed on, feeds the plants and boosts health and growth. This also helps keep aphids and mildew at bay.
- Plant through mulch
At Easton Walled Gardens sweet peas are grown through a layer of weed-suppressing landscape fabric which is topped off with mulch (we use a company called ‘Strulch’ but garden compost would also be suitable). This organic material helps to retain moisture and as it breaks down raises soil fertility, feeding the plants. Importantly it also helps to keep the plant roots cool, which keeps the sweet peas in healthy growth and flowering for longer.
- Keep on picking
Picking flowers from your sweet peas encourages the plants to produce more and as a result prolongs their lives. Traditional sweet peas are annual plants that have evolved to complete their life cycle in a single season, by producing seed as quickly as possible. Removing flowers prevents seed forming and promotes further flower production. You’ll notice that the first flowers appear on long stalks that look very elegant (especially when seen in tall vases), but as the season passes the stems get shorter. Flowers are best cut with a sharp pair of flower snips – cut the stalk as close to the main stem as possible. If you miss any flowers, snip off the seed pods as soon as you see them.
- Let side shoots develop
When sweet peas are grown up wires (known as ‘cordons’) in the traditional way for exhibition-quality flowers, side shoots are normally removed for the best blooms. But this will also shorten the life of plants in the garden. Try instead growing sweet peas as bushier plants and training them up pea sticks or wigwams and encouraging the side shoots that will in time bear flowers later in the season. In the Vegetable Garden here at Easton, the peas are now grown as towers in specially-constructed wire cylinders that allow plants to get tall while also retaining their valuable side shoots.
Keep cutting your sweet peas and they will keep flowering