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A silly question about sweet peas
I am growing them for the first time - in a barrel up a wigwam made up of eight pea sticks. In accordance with instructions I read somewhere, I planted three sweet peas at the base of each stick......but should I now just retain one for each support? Three growing up now look a bit "jumbled" and I'm worried they won't grow properly .....
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Hi Berkley. No, you leave them as a trio as when they grow they'll give you a more flowers. When they're small they look a bit jumbled but that's perfectly normal. Once we get some consistent weather they'll romp away and soon fill your wigwam. When they flower, make sure you pick them regularly and dead head - don't let them go to seed or they'll finish flowering early. They should keep you in flowers all through the summer!
As the barrel has a finite amount of compost and you will need to feed and give moisture on a regular basis the peas will produce lots of flowers, nature's way or survival lots of seeds,if you remove down to one per stick then you might need to stop the growing tips when they reach the tops of the sticks.The side shoots will then produce more flowers
.The most important advice that I can give is to make sure ,if you want them to keep producing flowers, is to cut when just the first bud has fully opened.Do not leave the flower to fully open on the plants.They still will open in the house and make a nice display.
Cordon grown peas can reach 15 feet high in a season that's why some growers layer them (but that's another story).I have layered thousand of cordon grown plants for exhibition during the last sixty years or so.
Thank you all for your advice. It was very helpful......I feel a lot happier now.