It’s finally Spring and a great time to get your garden ready for the Summer months ahead. In this feature of ‘Can You Dig It?’, Roger is back with his helpful gardening advice and talks about planting sweet peas and the sweet scent that they bring with them.
Planting Sweet Peas
One of the flowers we love to grow every year in the school garden are sweet peas. It’s lovely how for so many of us the sweet scent of sweet pea flowers in summer can bring back memories of summer gardens from when we were younger. Part of the reason why I love plants is that they can bring back such lovely memories.
Sweet Pea Seeds
Now is a great time to get planting sweet pea seeds, there are different options for planting, depending on the type you want and the space you have:
- If you are quick, you can get some seeds and plant them straight outside.
- If you want to grow the old fashioned climbing types, make sure to plant the seeds in a large pot or in a sunny border.
- If you only have limited space for a small pot, you could plant the dwarf compact varieties such as ‘Cupid’ so that you can enjoy the flowers and perfume on your doorstep.
Sweet Pea Plants
If you want to get a head start and enjoy the flowers quicker, you should be able to find young sweet pea plants for sale at your local garden centre. Here are some tips for taking care of the plants:
- Once you have purchased the sweet peas, plant them into the ground or a pot in some fresh compost to give them a good start and the plants will pay you back by growing quite quickly.
- If we happen to experience some light frost, don’t worry as sweet peas are quite tough compared to other summer bedding plants.
- Just keep them well-watered if we get some warm weather, especially as the plants get larger.
- The traditional, taller growing types will need something to climb through, strong twigs or a combination of bamboo canes and netting are great options. The plants can easily grow two metres high, imagine that – up to two metres of fantastic fragrant flowers!
Don’t worry if this sounds like hard work – it really isn’t, if I can do it, anyone can!
If you’d prefer to have plants inside your home, you can watch Roger’s video on looking after houseplants from last year, here.