Sweet peas 2021 turned out to be a rather mixed season with some plants producing an abundance of flowers while others barely got started.
I always sow my sweet peas in January but this year’s topsy turvy weather in spring meant early plants struggled and I ended up re-sowing several varieties.
Despite some varieties not really recovering, the season went on for weeks with those plants that did thrive, and I was still picking blooms in September even though my extremely sandy soil isn’t the best for sweet peas.
This year, I was given some compost to trial by Carbon Gold, having ‘met’ them at the virtual Garden Press Event, and I used that in the planting holes to give the sweet peas a bit of a boost, along with some of Carbon Gold’s soil improver worked into the bed.
It’s a peat-free product made from biochar – the result of burning organic matter at high temperatures with little oxygen – and has a really good consistency. Did it help? Certainly the plants kept going for far longer than usual and produced masses of flowers.
As ever, I was kindly given seed to trial by various companies so the 2021 sweet peas were all new to me this season.
It turned out to be rather a ‘red’ year, different to my usual tendency towards purple and blue flowers.
One of my favourites was ‘America’ from Chilterns Seeds, a rather striking red/pink and white marbled variety which produced flowers that varied in their colour balance.
Some of them were definitely more red than white but just as beautiful.
Among Mr Fothergill’s 2021 sweet peas was this one brought out to honour all healthcare staff and their work during the pandemic. Named ‘Nightingale’ after the emergency hospitals, it was a really cheerful colour – but very difficult to capture in a photo!
It was a good ‘picking’ sweet pea as it produced very long stems without the need to specially train them as many cut flower growers do.
Another vibrant bloom was ‘Henry Thomas’, sent to me by Chilterns. This had beautifully frilly flowers with a pink/red colour.
While I tend to favour the ‘marbled’ sweet peas, it’s a good idea to have some varieties that are a single colour as they act as a foil in a mixed bunch.
Another good foil for multi-shaded varieties was the simple creamy white ‘Cathy’ from Chilterns. I particularly liked the green tinge to the buds.
Chilterns describe ‘Route 66’ as a “bit of a show-off” thanks to its strong scent and vivid flowers. It certainly made an impact both on its own and as part of a mixed bunch.
This was another sweet pea with a wash of colour that I liked. ‘Geoff Hughes’, from Chilterns, was similar to ‘America’ in colour just a bit more coral. I found it was not as prolific – ‘America’ was one of the very last to stop flowering.
‘Sir Jimmy Shand’, also from Chilterns, was another variety that didn’t perform as well. The lilac rippled flowers were lovely but there weren’t as many of them.
‘Supersonic’, from Suttons got off to a poor start and never really recovered. It should have produced flowers with a range of typical sweet pea colours but this was the only plant that survived.
With both this and ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’, I have more seed left so I will try again next year and hope for better results.
One of the sweet peas 2021 success stories was ‘Ballerina Blue’ from Chilterns. This flowered for weeks, giving up only when it was overwhelmed by black fly in September. More lavender than blue, it had good long stems making it ideal for picking.
Last year, my favourite sweet pea was ‘Early Grey’ from Chilterns and ‘Night Sky’, which they sent me this year had a similar marking to the flowers, albeit more purple than grey. It proved to be another winner – long-flowering and very pretty.
The weeks are galloping by and it will soon be time to sow next year’s sweet peas. Let’s hope it’s a successful season.
Enjoyed this? Why not follow my blog and get an email alert about future posts.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Mandy Bradshaw
2 Comments