Sweet Pea "Spencer Old Times"

This listing refers to the sale of seeds. Each pack contains 50 seeds.

Lathyrus odoratus is beloved for its sweet, honey-like flowers. They can be grown as annuals or herbaceous or evergreen perennials with pinnate leaves and showy pea-like flowers.

Sweet Pea Spencers are one of the most popular and beloved varieties. They have a wonderful color range, long stems, varying degrees of perfume and are the most highly prized by the exhibitor's of the flower. They usually have four large blooms per stem and make for a fabulous show in the summer garden. Old Times has creamy-white, almost green-looking flowers with paint strokes of light purple.

Spencer Series sweet peas are known as late-flowering because they require at least 12 hours of daylight.

• Height at maturity: 250 cm
• Width at maturity: 50 cm
• Light needs: Semi-shade/indirect sun
• Type of soil: Well-drained with manure
• Soil pH: Slightly alkaline (7.0 to 7.5)
• Features: Fragrant, attracts bees and butterflies
• Pruning: Trim off spent and faded blooms
• Best time to sow seeds: September-April
• Flowering period: Spring to late summer (depending on the planting time)
• Warnings: Unlike edible garden peas, sweet peas are poisonous

Sweet peas don't like to be transplanted so it's best to plant them where you want them to flower. Germination takes about 2-3 weeks. Stake your plants in advance so as not to disrupt the roots. This variety will need a trellis or fence to stand upright.

In USDA Zones 7-10 with mild winters, you can sow sweet pea seeds in fall around October.

For colder climates (Zones 3-5), you can start seeds in November so long as temperatures can stay above freezing all winter. You will likely need to keep them in a greenhouse during the coldest parts of the winter.

Flowering

Day length, temperature and light intensity determine when your sweet peas will flower. As the weather warms, sweet peas will bloom right until the first heatwave of the summer.

In the UK flower can be expected from early March under glass, while in California for example, cut flower can easily be produced in time for the Christmas market.