Tag Archives: scabious

The Sweet Scent of Success

We are coming to the end of sweet peas in the garden.  They are, to me, a bellwether flower.  Every gardener seems to grow them and anyone who sees ours in the bookshop feels compelled to comment on them, before adding a self-assessment of their own sweet peas; as if the growing of sweet peas is an indicator of one’s horticultural credentials. 

When I think of sweet peas, I think of my mother.  Throughout the summer she would provide bunches to take away whenever we stayed and when, after she died, I started growing them myself it seemed apt that the first flower seemed always to appear on her birthday – 10th July.

Over time, we have managed to bring forward the sweet pea season, but when we were tasked with supplying flowers for “The Wedding of the Year”, on 13th July, I knew we would have to bring our A-game to make sure Verity was not walking up the aisle with just a single sweet pea in her bouquet.

Planning was essential, with seeds bought as early as August last year, and sown in November.  Germination was good, but by January the ranks had been decimated by damping off.  But, as we had sown enough to sink a Russian battleship, the remaining plants ensured we were still in with a fighting chance of producing enough flowers for the summer. 

By March they were bursting out of their pots and storage containers and needed more room outside of the greenhouse.  I used to think that Sweet Peas are not hardy, but they can survive anything down to -4C, so we took a low risk gamble and planted them out.  Despite the wet weather, the first flower appeared on 5th May and by July they were in full bloom, so the job was a good ‘un. 

They have continued to crop heavily until just a week ago.  So heavily, in fact, that the rectangular frame of old gazebo poles and green netting collapsed under the weigh and now resembles the Wembley goalposts of 1977 after celebratory Scottish fans invaded the pitch.

The results were good, but after the planning and the doing, we are now in the reviewing stage and need to plan to ensure even better performance next summer.  Sterilising plant pots could reduce the chance of damping off and continuing to nip out the shoots undoubtedly helped the crop.

As to which varieties to grow, it is clear that some are better suited for cutting than others.  We tried 13 different varieties from two different suppliers (Higgledy Garden & Premier Seeds Direct):

Heaven Scent Mix

Mammoth Scarlet

Parfume Millennium

Parfume White Supreme

Winston Churchill

Beaujolais

Leamington

Painted Lady

Cupani

Starry Night

Perfume Delight

Mammoth

Swan Lake

It is not easy deciding which to buy again.  Success is not marked by sweet scent alone so, for example, although Cupani has a lovely aroma, it has short thin stems, while the Parfume white has wonderful long, strong stems, but is less scented.  Ah, but which to choose?  Perhaps we should decide it in the style of Harry Hill:

“FIGHT!!!”

Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dogs’ Tails

Is that a carrot I see before me?

May was a busy but nerve-wracking month in the Midlife Garden.  After starting our cut flowers in storage boxes, they germinated quickly and copiously, but by April we face the challenge of what to do with all those healthy looking seedlings when they outgrew their boxes but looked a little too delicate to go outside.

We kept them protected in the greenhouse, with the lid off, but soon started getting leggy like a load of seedling Peter Crouches.   So, on 16th April, we took a gamble and planted them out in the raised beds, weeks before any theoretical last frosts.  They were not entirely unprotected, though, as we circled the little darlings with an array of glass to create a cold frame out of the raised bed.  And we kept a supply of fleece in case of frosts and kept a watchful eye on the weather forecast.

Incredibly the plants survived, mainly due to the unpredictable frosts not arriving.  Instead, it has been soaking wet, which has bought about the more predictable destruction at the hands (if that is the right term) of the invertebrates.

Every year I plant out wonderful, healthy seedlings, expecting an abundant crop, only to see them dismantled by slugs.  It is the horticultural equivalent of insanity – doing the same thing over again, with the same catastrophic result.  Normally, after the initial dismay and a couple of single malts, I am reasonably sanguine.  But not this year.  Oh no, not for the summer of 2024.  We need flowers.  And lots of them.  And on the 13th July.

We started looking up every means of delaying, defeating or destroying the slimy assailants.  We started with beer traps, which proved to be very popular, but when it rains the beer is diluted and, anyway, there still seemed to be quite a few teetotal slugs who avoided the alcoholic orgy to feast on the cosmos and sunflowers. 

There are conscientious gardeners online who have pseudo-scientifically tested all the usual remedies with varying results.  Eggshells, coffee grounds, gravel, sand, and talcum powder were partially or wholly ineffective – depending on the ground conditions.  But one method I had not come across was the use of brambles to create a barrier.  I have tried that on the sunflowers.  It is the second planting of sunflowers – the first ones ended up as stumps, alongside jam jars full of beer sodden slugs who did not make it to the sunflower feast – but, for now, the brambles seem to be working. 

Another way to rid your garden of slugs is nightly hunting expeditions down the garden.  It is a dispiriting sight, seeing a load of slugs heading across the grass like a bunch of post-apocalyptic Mad Max crazies hell-bent on destroying your crops.  The other night we came home late and found the Bells of Ireland covered in the slime balls.  The Bells are the potential signature flower of the summer – it will be first time we have managed to grow them to maturity if we actually achieve it, so the attack on them was the final straw. 

Now we have gone all medieval.  By which I do not mean hot oil, burning fat, slings, arrows or just a pike or two.  We have decided to use moats to keep them at bey since we do not think slugs and snails can swim.  And, so far, it seems to be working.