Blog: My choice is Flamingo Flamenco Mix
Subtle flowers won’t do this year – we need zingy colours to lift our mood, that’s why I’m looking at the best vibrant sweet pea mixes this week. The selection I’m growing this year is Flamingo Flamenco Mix from Chiltern Seeds, which has a lovely selection.
I’m not an advocate of fashion or contemporary design, but bad taste is better than no taste at all! This modern grandiflora mix contains clashing pink, orange and red sweet peas on 1.8m plants. I like to sow sweet peas at the end of January, using a decent peat-free multipurpose compost. As the seedlings spend a longer than usual time in the pots, they need the extra nutrition.
Reuse and recycle
I use large yoghurt pots (cleaned thoroughly after each use), planting two seeds in each. Sweet peas root deeply and need the extra space. These also come for free! For more information on how to sow them and when, check out my sweet pea page.
- Heirloom Mixed, Chiltern Seeds: A new exclusive mixture of old-fashioned sweet peas with strong fragrance and glorious colours to 2.4m.
- Fragrant Boundary, Suttons Seeds: The 1-1.2m tall plants are ideal as an informal hedge. Each plant produces strong tendrils, which help the plants to knit together. The highly-scented, bi-coloured grandiflora/heirloom flowers are in pink, white and blue.
Vibrant mix of old favourites
- Harlequin Mix, Sarah Raven: Three old favourites, Lord Nelson, Matucana and Prince Edward of York.
- Parfumiere, Plants of Distinctio: I can vouch for the great fragrance and colour shades in this mixture of heirloom varieties.
- Fragrantissima, Thompson & Morgan: White, pinks, reds, blues, purples, bicolours, and stripes in a large-flowered mix, height 2m.
Hope you enjoyed my best vibrant sweet pea mixes – of course, you can always create your own!
