Late summer flowers

Dahlias and sweet peas:

Cut flowers from the plot

Carnations and sweet peas:


Carnations and dahlias:

Sweet peas

Much better results growing using the cordon system - longer stems and better quality flowers:

Sweet peas

I'm going to try cordon training these this year. In theory this will give me better quality flowers. I pinched the tops out when they were planted out. Now the resulting side shoots are about 20cm long I've pruned them to leave the best one; this is now trained up the cane, any more side shoots will also be removed to leave a single stem and great flowers on long stems. In theory.

Before pruning:

After pruning:

Sweet peas

I've been using saved seed for a few years now and these are starting to cross and revert so next year I'll have to dig deep and fork out for some fresh seed. They still smell as good as ever mind.

Sweet peas

Sweet Peas

I sowed these in the greenhouse a month ago and moved them to the coldframe to harden off a week ago. Today I've pinched their tops out and planted them out.


Tops pinched out:


Planted out:

Sweet peas flowering

Sweet peas

The sweet peas are climbing their support nicely:

Sweet Peas

I sow my sweet peas quite late, in the middle of March, so that I can get them in the ground once the soil has started warming up and the roots can go straight down rather than going round and round in their pots.

I sow them in the greenhouse, three seeds to a 9cm pot, then get them out into the cold frame as soon as they've germinated. By the middle of April they were looking like this:


I planted them out at the end of April:


I pinch the tops out so they send out strong new shoots so by today they were looking like this:


Now all I've got to do is put up some support for them to climb up; it's up to them to get on with growing and make lots of nice flowers for me.

Sweet peas

Sweet peas

Runner beans,sweet peas, peas and cosmos

Sweet peas and peas

Sweet peas

Sweet peas, runner beans and peas

Sweet peas planted out

Sweet peas

Sweet peas starting to flower

Sweet Peas