The first sweet peas are always for my Mum.

I’m growing a mix of old and new. Heritage varieties: Mrs Collier (cream) and Dorothy Eckford (white). New this year: Capel Manor. Old favourites: High Scent, Wiltshire Ripple Mix, Albutt Blue and Chatsworth.

The best Blue is Chatsworth. Five or six flowers per stem, prettily ruffled and gloriously scented. Long lasting in a vase, and flowers until the first frosts. The Duchess of Devonshire, the last of the Mitford Sisters, lived at Chatsworth and was president of the Sweet Pea Society for many years.

High Scent and Albutt Blue are modern grandiflora varieties with a picotee edge. Albutt Blue, bred by Harvey Albutt I’m 1999, has a blue rim on a white ground. High Scent is a cream flower with a mauve edge. High Scent is also known as April in Paris.

Seeds are planted in root trainers in October. Use 50/50 compost and grit for drainage. I start mine in a propagator at 15C. As soon as a green shoot is spotted, I remove them from the propagator and grow on in a cold poly tunnel. Sweet peas can cope with cold, but shouldn’t be too wet or they will rot. To out-wit the mice, I stand the root trainers in a deep straight-sided plastic storage box. When the seedlings are 3-4″ tall, I pinch out the tips to make bushy plants. The tips can be grown on as cuttings. Very useful if you are growing heritage varieties and only have a few seeds in the packet.

I planted mine in April in no-dig beds. I mulch the bed with Plant Grow (plant based) fertiliser. This feeds and holds in moisture, and seems to deter slugs and snails.

My sweet peas scramble up an A-frame of hazel rods. I grow them in the same place for four years, then move them to a different bed to prevent the build up of pest and diseases. By then, the hazel rods are collapsing anyway and need replenishing. Each year I weave in a few more twigs to strengthen the supports. I water with a liquid Plant Grow feed.

In front of the sweet peas there’s a row of calendulas and highly-scented pinks. Every space is crammed with flowers.

Alongside, there’s dianthus barbatus (sweet williams). These are sown in summer, make good strong roots and leaves in the first year, and flower in the next. This year I’m growing a dark red variety called Sooty which is just coming into bloom. Sweet williams follow wall flowers to give a continuous supply of cut flowers. I learned how to grow cut flowers at Common Farm Flowers with Georgie Newbery in Somerset.

Little extras in this posy are the last of the forget-me-nots and some pink alliums I always harvest, as a way of controlling them. They can become invasive.

And finally, a favourite pelargonium. This originally came as a cutting from my grandfather Ted Foulds. He loved his garden and each week came to visit and “inspect the plot.” He never arrived without a pot of something, a few seeds, an offset, a cutting. Half my garden came from my grandfather and my Mum. He died 22nd May 2005 aged 83. Still desperately missed, but not forgotten. I faithfully take cuttings of his pelargoniums each autumn, and they flower every summer, as a lovely reminder of him.

Links : In a Vase on Monday :https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2019/06/03/in-a-vase-on-monday-oops/

Sweet peas at Easton :https://www.visiteaston.co.uk/whats-on/coming-up

Ripple Mixed varieties : https://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/Flower-Seed/Tall_3/Sweet-Pea-Ripple-Mixed-Seeds.html#.XPTo-4zTWfA

Plant Grow fertiliser : http://www.plantgrow.co.uk/our-products.html

Root Trainers : https://www.haxnicks.co.uk/garden-products/rootrainers

Sweet William seed: https://www.mr-fothergills.co.uk/Flower-Seed/Sweet-William-Seeds/#.XPTptYzTWfA

Common Farm : https://www.commonfarmflowers.com/

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