Sweet Pea Solstice Crimson
The Solstice series was introduced some 20 years ago and was developed especially for flowering in shorter days.
Only 10 hours of daylight are needed to initiate flowering with these cultivars, so they can be sown from April through to August for flowering from late winter to early summer. As well as early flowering, seed of the Solstice cultivars can be sown in summer for flowering in the shorter autumn days when other sweet peas have finished.
This cultivar, as the name suggests, is a rich crimson with ruffled petals and a sweet fragrance.
10 seeds per pack.
Keith Hammett's world class breeding programme has brought us this beautiful range of Sweet Peas. All these varieties are suitable for planting from winter to early spring.
Planting
Soak your seeds for 24 hours before sowing. This softens the seed coat and speeds the sprouting process by a few days. Sow into small pots first to establish the plants, then transplant out when they are 3-4cm tall. Once your seedlings have four sets of leaves, gently “pinch” out the central stem between the top set of leaves to encourage the development of bushier plants.
After Planting
Sweet peas are climbers, so make sure you provide something to climb or ramble over.
Flowers
If you regularly harvest their blooms, or deadhead before their seedpods form, they will push on to keep producing flowers for as long as the vines remain healthy. Sweet peas are greedy feeders so top up their beds with liquid fertiliser a few times over the flowering season.
After Flowering:
To harvest your own seeds, you need to let the seed pods mature and dry on the vine. Mature pods are cardboard brown and easily crack open. As they self-pollinate, any seeds you collect will be true to the cultivar they were harvested from, although mutations can occur sometimes.
