Bristol Sweet Pea Plants

Blue Spencer Sweet Peas

Bristol sweet pea is a favourite of both exhibition growers and amateur gardeners alike, as its many awards will attest. Its pale blue/cream flowers, reaching 4cm across, are gently shaded. See our full range of sweet peas.

Our Sweet Peas are delivered in purpose-designed, recycled cardboard packaging, and are ready to be planted out when you get them.
We generally send them out between March and May, but we will email you with the likely delivery timescale once you have placed your order.

It has a heady, strong fragrance - one of the best - and the strong, long-stemmed, frilly Spencer-type blooms make Bristol perfect as a cut flower.

The flowers open as a uniform soft blue. The standards open flat with a cream rim, becoming strongly waved, soft blue slightly paler at the edges, wings soft blue, even paler at the edges. This gentle shading shows off each petal to best effect and the florets are well-placed on the stem, making it a favourite with exhibitors and florists. The National Sweet Pea Society classes it as a Pale Blue.

Goes well with...

The exceptional pale shading and perfume of Bristol mean it is best used near the front of a border on its own on an obelisk or on a trellis, so it can be appreciated fully. However, dark glossy evergreen leaves, such as Fatsia japonica will act as a wonderful backdrop, as will a black wall, creating a contemporary look.

Sweet pea Bristol is ideal for growing in large pots on a patio, where its beautiful perfume and delicate colouring can be appreciated next to a seating area. In fact, it is the ideal plant to grow over a pergola. Plants will need extra watering and a high potash plant food (such as tomato fertiliser) to keep flowering throughout the season. Don't forget to keep deadheading - if seed pods are allowed to develop, the sweet pea's flowering mechanism will switch off.

Features of Blue Spencer Sweet Peas

• Colour: Shaded pale blue with cream edges
• Stem: Long and strong
• Height: 2m
• Type: Spencer
• Scent: Strong and heady
• Flowering: May-October
• Planting Months: March-June
• RHS Award of Garden Merit, AM

Did you know...

Phil Kerton, from Somerset, bred it in the early 1990s. It has won the Award of Merit of Exhibition, the RHS Award of Garden Merit, the FC Harris Memorial Award (Best Seedling at RHS Wisley and RHS Harlow Carr Trials) and the Clay Cup for the best vase in the National Sweet Pea Society National Show.

Plant Bristol Sweet Peas in well prepared, moist soil that ideally was enriched with organic matter the previous autumn (if you did not do it then, do it now!). Erect supports for the peas to climb up before planting. They can also be planted in pots of sufficient size - allow 6 litres per plant - and with an ideal planting medium of 50% compost, 40 %top soil and 10% well-rotted manure. General purpose compost will do however but produces fewer flowers.

The principal requirement is enough water - Sweet Peas are thirsty and hungry plants. They can cope with a little shade but flower better in full sun.

Space plants about 10-15 cm apart and 5 cm from their support. The hole should be deep enough to accommodate the longest root and the soil should come up to the level of the first side shoot. Use wire/netting/twine between the supports so that the Sweet Pea can climb naturally. You will still need to tie them into the frame. They grow fast, so check every ten days or so.

Water well; the soil around sweet peas should never dry out. As the flowers develop pick them and then pick again, otherwise they start to form seedpods and will stop flowering altogether. Keep tying in and picking for as long as you can. Perfectionists will remove the curling tendrils which grip other stems and can result in flowers with wiggly stems and also will remove side shoots. see the website for more advice on training sweetpeas.

By all means apply a high potash and phosphate fertiliser during the growing season. (Sweet Peas actually fix nitrogen from the air into the soil so you don't need more of that.) Home-made comfrey liquid is perfect or Tomorite will do especially if you are on a sandy soil.