As part of the tidy up I have been cutting my sweet peas, even the ones that are still very much in bud and those from my garden at home that grow up my willow wigwams and that generally I only deadhead. As it is only today and tomorrow evening that I will be able to enjoy the flowers I haven't put a large bunch together, but I thought it was a nice opportunity to show another trick up the (home) florist's sleeve.
I have grown far too many sweet pea plants. I allowed them to overcrowd the root trainers in addition to planting them out late. This has resulted in quite some plants looking miserable and producing short stemmed flowers. But not the ones at home. I planted those out in April and each of those plants were in a root trainer on their own with a lovely and not overcrowded bunch of roots. Thus they are now healthy plant producing really long-stemmed beautiful flowers.
From these ten plants I have picked about 20 stems today, which will of course not pack a vase, but it will still make a lovely display using a pin and some floral tack, which is best described as underwater blue tac. You use this to stick the pin at the bottom of the vase.
As all my labels have faded away, I think that the purple-navy ones are "Lord Nelson" and the pink-red one is "Barry Dare". I quite like the way that through using the pin the flowers aren't crowded which allows them to show their elegance.
This year I sowed my sweet peas in January, but for next year I intend to sow this October. This will not only lead to healthier plants (especially if I follow my own advice of only one plant per root trainer!), but it also spreads the work. There is already plenty to do in spring. So if 10 plants lead to 20 stems every few days, then 40 plants should lead to 80 stems. That should be far, far enough! So this decision is was easy, but the next one is already doing my head in: what colours and how many of which variety?
Ps Next week's bunch is going to be the weekend, as I am back late on Friday.
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