The Sweet peas arrived with abundance in July and I’m always so happy to see them or should I say smell them. That perfume so evocative for me, lots of memories and the scent of summer. I love picking that first bunch and holding it to my nose, closing my eyes and taking a big deep breath in. Ah heavenly. I have an A-frame which I plant them on, this is at the end of the garden next to my greenhouse in the sunniest spot and they soon get going on there. Here is a big bunch of some of the Higgledy garden varieties.
The Higgledy varieties, from top left to right, ‘Flagship’ a dark rich purple, ‘Swan Lake’ clear pure white, ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’ a frilly variety with pink edging, ‘Winston Churchill’ a great red, ‘Leamington’ dreamy pastel lilac, ‘Noel Sutton’ a really good blue, ‘Mrs R Bolton’ peachy pink flushed white and ‘Beaujolais’ robust wine purple.
I grow as many as I can fit of the Higgledy garden varieties and this time there were a couple of new varieties that we sold and they were beauties. The first was Sweet pea ‘Mrs R Bolton’ and this was a lovely peachy pink. A lovely addition to the Higgledy colour range.
Plus Sweet pea ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’ which was a delight for me, I love a ruffled flower and this was edged in bright pink. A real beauty and it had lovely long stems too.
It’s become a bit tricky now for the sweet peas, they don’t like the dry weather we have been having and can then start to produce flowers on much shorter stem and start go to seed a bit quicker. The answer here is to pick them on longer stems with tendrils which I think adds lots of texture and interest to the posies too. I’ve given mine a good feed and I’m hopeful that this good amount of rain we have had the last few days will perk them up again. But my feeling for sweet peas is that the earlier you can get them in in spring the better, they flower earlier before it starts getting too dry.
I’ve also tried a couple of new varieties this year, always like to experiment a bit, this was my favourite new variety, it is Sweet pea ‘Juliet’, I just love this it is a beautiful rich cream colour.
Then the infamous Insta popular variety, Sweet pea ‘Kings Ransom’, it is a real unusual colour, sort of salmon pink, sort of peachy and goes really well with a more pastel range.
Then this beauty, Sweet pea ‘Mollie Rilstone’, white with just a delicate pink/peach blush. Gorgeous.
The sunshine Calendulas have been brightening up my cutting garden. Here we have Calendula ‘Indian Prince’ with double Feverfew and Clematis ‘Romantika’.
But I do think my favourite Calendula is ‘Snow Princess’ and one of my favourite colour combinations for floral arrangements is yellow and blue and I love the pale lemon yellow of this Calendula with the true blue of Cornflower ‘Blue Ball’, with more Feverfew and the delightful white Corncockle ‘Bianca’.
A few other goodies are starting to flower. The Snapdragon ‘Lucky Lips’, which has been growing well in the garden. 
Here in an arrangement with Origanum, Dahlia ‘Rip City’ and ‘Gypsy Night’ and Malva ‘Pink Blush’.
What else has been happening in my cutting garden, well I’ve sown by biennial seeds and these have germinated and I’ve started pricking these out. I’m having a bit of battle with slugs nibbling the sweet rocket seedlings which is really frustrating so I may have to do a second sowing of those but there is still time and I also quite often get seedlings of sweet rocket around the garden so I may still be OK with those.
At the other end of the scale in terms of the garden calendar, I’m also starting to collect seed from plants in my garden. This month, I have some Orlaya grandiflora to collect from and the Corncockle seed pods are starting to go brown and they will be rattling soon.
But blooming beautiful are my Dahlias, these have been flowering so well this year. These are the ones in my dustbins in the back garden and my favourite is the peachy one in the middle, its called Preference.
There are still to look forward too in the cutting garden, its all coming on now and its hard to keep up with it all, Phlox and Cosmos will be used in nearly all my bouquets going forward. The Zinnias are just starting to get going, as are the Rudbeckia, Amaranthus and Sunflowers. So exciting. I’ll do a mini-blog post on Phlox and Cosmos soon, they are just a joy to behold.
Hope your gardens are flowing with flowers.
Higgledy Anne
(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)