Autumn sweet pea sowing for a scent-filled summer

We are marching through October and Autumn is properly showing its presence now after a few false starts. The leaves are starting to turn now and light up the hedgerows and gardens with shades of yellows, vibrant orange and stunning reds. The nights are truly drawing in and the clocks go back next weekend that’s when we will really feel it. I’m embracing Autumn though, I love the change of seasons and after a crazy busy summer in my own garden, at the nursery at Bluebell cottage and at my job here at Higgledy, I like the fact that it slows down slightly, certainly in terms of physical gardening. It feels at more of a gentler pace in my garden, there is still plenty to do mostly in terms of preparing for next years flowers. How wonderful is that, despite the fact that your garden is in a slow decline, everything you do now is getting you ahead for next year. Whether that be clearing beds, mulching the soil, sowing autumn sown annuals and planting bulbs. Thats why I love gardening so much you are always thinking ahead and planning for a better garden. The key job on my to do list this week is sowing my sweet peas. Sweet peas are and have been part of my gardening calender for many years now. Oh sweet peas, how I love them so, the joy of picking that first big bunch and bringing it into the house to fill it with that sweet delicate scent. Its a very personal thing scent in flowers, there are the rich deep clovey scents of the lilies, that strong really perfume-like smell of Hyacinths but I find them a bit too strong and overwhelming in the house. I love that gentle scent of Honeysuckle, the somehow old-fashioned scent of Lily of the Valley and the more delicate softer scent of sweet peas. It really evokes the smell of summer for me. They come in such a range of colours from beautiful romantic pastel shades to more vibrant hot shades and they are just brilliant to pick as a big bunch and arrange together in a simple jamjar or they are brilliant to mix in to your summer flower arrangements adding that touch of scent which is often lacking. Sweet peas are a hardy annual climber, they love a sunny spot in the garden but they need good, nutrient rich soil and critically they need good moist soil. I used to sow them in spring and that is perfectly fine, they get growing quickly in the warmth and you usually start getting flowers in late June/July. But with the recent dry summers that we have had I’ve often found that they can struggle in those dry conditions, they have shorter flowers and can go to seed much quicker. So for the last 5 or so years I’ve really embraced autumn sowing of sweet peas. It means that you can plant them out earlier in the spring and they will start flowering earlier before it gets too hot and dry. They need a bit of warmth to germinate well but once they have germinated they are hardy and can be kept cool. I’ve got an unheated greenhouse, I sow them in mid to late October, and once germinated they are kept in there. It just protects them from the hardest of frosts and from getting too wet which can cause rotting, but a coldframe would do well too or just a sheltered spot in the garden.There are lots of suggestions on Instagram and online about soaking sweet peas, nicking them, all sorts of weird and wonderful things but I’ve never found the need to do that I always get good germination. As I said above they do need some warmth and I’ve found if you sow in October, there will still be some warmth through the day, that mine germinate fine in my unheated greenhouse. But a window sill above a radiator will be perfect too or you may have a propagator. But they just need some gentle warmth to encourage germination. Once you see those green shoots though they prefer to be kept cooler. You want them to put on slow and steady early growth just enough so they can sit happily through the colder winter weather and then start up again into growth in the spring. They can cope with the cold, though I often give them a bit more protection if we have a prolonged spell of really low temperatures, just have some fleece handy that you can cover them with. In late winter on warmer days I will move them outside during the day to harden them up a bit and then I plant them as soon as I possibly can in the spring, usually late March/early April. Then they will get growing their roots down and once the warmer weather in May comes will get growing up your supports and hopefully you will be cutting them in early June. Gives them a longer flowering season before the really hot summer builds. I tend to sow in root trainers or 9cm pots, the roots grow a long way down in sweet peas so whatever you grow them in they need some room to grow downwards. This is more important I think with autumn sowing as they are sat in their pots a lot longer than from a spring sowing. I use Melcourt Sylvagrow multipurpose compost which is nice and fine for seed sowing but also has a bit of nutrition in there to keep them going over winter. I sow one or two seeds per module or pot and that is so easy with sweet peas as they are little black balls and are easy to handle and push down into the compost about an inch down. Within a few weeks there should be signs of germination. Keep an eye out for slugs and snails that can nip out those first growing tips and some people have an issue with mice who love sweet pea seeds and can pinch them before they get chance to germinate. You don’t want the growth to get too long and leggy, hence keeping them cooler once they have germinated to slow down the growth. They can be pinched out if they do start getting too leggy or after they have produced 2 or 3 sets of leaves. That just means nipping off the top growth down to the next leaf, leaving two sets of leaves below that point. Then you will get shoots emerging further down and you will get a nice bushier plant.They are climbers and need to be grown up a support or frame of some sort, this can be what puts some people off growing them but really its just at the beginning of their growth to get them started. Once they start twining themselves they will be fine. There is also lots of talk about nipping out the growing tendrils but really thats only if you are growing for shows or competitions, and obviously if you nip out those tendrils you will need to keep tying them as you are removing their climbing mechanism for their growth. The tendrils can just be a bit of a pain as they can attach to your flower stems and bend them out of shape but really this is a minor problem! I grow mine up a mixture of A-frame or wigwams for ease, but they can go a bit crazy when they get to the top of the support, where it narrows. But a support that doesn’t narrow at the top are the best as it allows more consistent growth and flowering. Many growers recommend a circle of canes to make a column like structure so that they don’t all squash together when they get to the top. Or if you want to grow for shows then growing a single stem (cordon) up a tall cane. These last two types are best if you are growing for shows. But honestly if you are growing them to have a mass of colour and fragrance in your garden then wigwams do look lovely and fit into a cottage garden scheme perfectly. Whatever you chose to grow them up, once they are flowering you must keep picking them, oh the hardship!! The more you pick the more they will flower, I’ve found best to do one big pick a week once they are up and running then by the time they are going over you will have more to pick.It is truly one of my favourite flower so many different colours but in my opinion they have to have a good scent. The best for this is definitely  ‘Cupani’,  smaller flowers than the more highly bred varieties but they make up for that in scent. Here at Higgledy Garden we also sell a number of single colour varieties all selected though with scent in mind! Here are a few of the Higgledy varieties from 2025, 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.It enables some nice colour schemed bouquets. this one has ‘Flagship’, ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’, ‘Noel Sutton’ and ‘Leamington’.This one has ‘Beaujolais’, ‘Leamington’ and ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’.And this one has ‘Winston Churchill’, ‘Noel Sutton’, ‘Flagship’, ‘Beaujolais’ and ‘Leamington’.

But I also love adding sweet peas to my mixed arrangements adding scent to an arrangement is always a great thing to do and ‘Beaujolais’ looked fantastic in this bouquet. With ‘Canterbury bells, Cornflower ‘Black Ball’, Gypsophila, Sanguisorba, Oreganum and Cynoglossum ‘Mystic Pink’.

Here we have ‘Noel Sutton’ and ‘Leamington’ with Larkspur Imperials’, Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’, Echium ‘Blue Bedder’, Feverfew and Cornflower ‘Mauve Ball’.

We have a couple of new varieties for you to try this season, the first is ‘Heathcliff” which I have grown in the past and is a really good blue sweet pea, with lighter and darker tones depending on the light. Second is one I grew for the first time this year and really fell in love with it. ‘Mollie Rilstone’ is a gorgeous delicate cream blushed with pink/peachy tones.If you don’t want to grow single colour varieties then we have some lovely mixes, like ‘Perfume Delight’ and ‘Mammoth’ again picked for good perfume.

We currently have a special 25% off offer for sweet pea seeds at the moment, a fabulous bundle of 6 sweet pea varieties.

Higgledy Anne

(I’m on Instagram anne_hinks if you fancy a follow)