A superb sweet pea season

Despite not giving a thought to the overall colour scheme, I thought
the overall effect of my haphazard buying was really pretty

This year I really went for the sweet peas.  Every year I have a competition with my neighbour as to who can get sweet peas to flower first (he doesn't know he is involved in this competition). This year I won, and I am so smug about it.  He still grew far more overall but he gives over half his garden to them while I just have a couple of pots.  Last time I talked sweet peas they were just about blooming, see here.

Bright zingy colours are always a welcome sight, although this was not
luminous in real life 

I had a continuous bountiful supply right from June until the end of August, and thats not bad I think.  Last weekend I pulled out the first plant to bloom because it had finally given up flowering, and to be honest with you im quite glad.  They sure are pretty, but boy are they are a lot of work.  In full heavy flower I was spending a good twenty minutes out there every evening cutting them, but thats just stage one.  Then comes the long arduous task of checking through all the blooms picked in the last couple of days for dead and dying ones before adding in the new ones.  The problem is sweet peas are just so messy.  The moment you touch a slightly ageing one it completely collapses and then theres pollen all over the worktops and petals are swimming around in the sink.  Im not complaining, but I think I need the next eight months off to really look forward to next year's batch again.

The average daily pick near the end of the season

My aim every year is to have sweet peas coming out of my ears and have enough to give away down the street.  Well I didn't quite manage that because I staggered my sowings so I only ever had two pots flowering at the same time. I did manage to fill four vases at once though, the kitchen windowsill absolutely stuffed.  I like them in the kitchen, it really brightens up the washing-up.

A particularly bright pink arrangement, barry dare is one of my top picks for
the year, its fabulous

I didn't put chicken-wire around the bottom of the pots or netting round the canes, and my peas were just fine.  Yes a little unruly, but thats my style so thats not a bother.  So much easier than trying to fight with the net to even get to the flowers.

I let my peas grow free and uncaged this year, it it worked perfectly well
safe to say I wont be faffing around with chicken wire or netting in the future!

I thought having one pot flower so late was a mistake but its nice to still have long stemmed flowers to help add a little height to a vase when you get to that annoying stage later in a sweet peas life when you only have an inch of stem to try and work with.  I really hate this part.  I thought it was something I was doing wrong, but a little internet research revealed this to just be a sign the plant is getting older.  I wish it wouldn't, you just can't arrange an inch in any attractive meaningful way.

This clearly shows the shortening of the stem as the season progresses, the long ones are from my last sowings, while the short ones at the bottom are much older.  How you're meant to do anything with the short ones I don't know

So on to the actual colours.  Some have really wowed me, others were underwhelming and some have just been plane missing.  But overall I was very pleased that my haphazard buying led to a very pleasing colour scheme.  It turns out really dark coloured flowers are simply beautiful, two very late additions were the absolute highlight for me.  Ones that promise to change colour are really not worth it, and pink ones are super pretty.  If I was a more organised person I would be able to go through every variety I planted with a corresponding picture, but I am not that person.  I did not label a thing. Instead in another upcoming post I will just run through the ones I can identify and are worth it, or not.

Im really fond of these bright pinky red ones