If you are new to this space, welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!
Allow me to quickly catch you up to speed: Throughout the month of February, we are filling the blog with tons of flower-focused resources, growing tips and floral design tricks, including information that was previously available exclusively to Floret Workshop participants. It’s all part of what the team and I are calling the February “Blog Blizzard.” Even though we’ve had a mild winter here in the valley, we’ve “snowed” ourselves inside to put together new, helpful information to help prepare you for another great growing season.
For today’s post, I want to focus on the sweetest flower of the spring garden: the Sweet Pea.
First off, if you haven’t already stumbled across it, I want to bring your attention to the newly expanded Floret RESOURCES section. In it, you’ll find How to Grow Sweet Peas, a succinct tutorial and photo essay that condenses my best growing advice into one bit sized post.
For those of you looking for even more information and inspiration on this sweet little bloom, I thought I’d do a quick re-cap of some of the best posts I’ve put together over the years–so grab a cup of coffee and pull up a chair.
Here is a summary of past posts in no particular order:
My Sweet Peas Were the Gateway post shares the history of how I became a flower farmer.
In The Trials of a Sweet Pea Addict, I detail my process of trialing over 100 sweet pea cultivars on the farm in 2015. It includes beautiful overhead shots of the field, plus some cool photos from historic sweet pea texts.
My Confessions of a Sweet Pea Addict post shares lots of photos and the intensity of my sweet pea seed obsession.
In 2014, I put together a special two-part in-depth series on how to grow great sweet peas:
Growing Great Sweet Peas: Part 1
Growing Great Sweet Peas: Part 2
Back in 2013, I listed My favorite Sweet Peas which included lots of fun photos of specific cultivars I fell in love with. The search for extra special Sweet Pea seeds was one of several catalysts for starting Floret Seeds. Many of the best long-stemmed varieties are not easy to find here in the U.S. or require large orders to meet supplier minimums, which put them out of reach of most home gardeners.
Earlier this week, I shared with Floret newsletter subscribers the three new Sweet Pea collections we’ve created:
Peaches ‘n Cream Collection
Heartbreaker Collection
Ocean Treasures Collection
Each collection includes five varieties and enough seed to plant a 15-20 foot double row of Sweet Peas in your garden. Featuring subtle ombre shades of color, each collection is beautifully packaged and includes a Seed Starting 101 Guide.
For our international friends looking for seed sources, be sure to check out:
Sarah Raven (UK)
Eagle Sweet Peas (UK)
Easton Walled Garden (UK)
Dr. Keith Hammett (NZ)
And if that’s not enough to satisfy you sweet pea cravings, check out these posts:
Sweet Peas = Smiles from 2011
June 19, 2014 Seasonal Flower Alliance
Last but not least, to continue the Sweet Pea love fest here on the blog, we’re giving away one of our new collections (listed above) to three lucky readers.
UPDATE: GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS: Leah Anne (lafahy), Meredith(mj_williams23) and Jonathan Wright! We will be in contact to get your addresses to send you the Sweet Pea Collections or feel free to send your mailing address to: info [at] floret flowers.com Thanks to all who weighed in with their favorites!
Even though we are no longer taking entries, feel free to share your most loved Sweet Pea flower colors in the comments below:
White or cream
Delicate Flushes
Pinks
Red or Maroon
Orange, Salmon or Peach
Blues
Lavender and Purple
Bicolors
Flakes or Stripes
Jump start spring by starting these flower seeds now - Floret Flowers on
[…] my favorites are ‘Nimbus,’ ‘Mollie Rilstone’ and ‘Erewhon.’ I recently posted a Sweet Pea Roundup post with tons of information on how to grow sweet peas, so be sure to read those posts to get the full […]