Millennium Sweet Pea Seedlings

Millennium Sweet Pea

An exotic sweet pea, Millennium rejoices in its large, 6cm flowers that have a ruby red standard petal that has tinges of purple to it while its wing petals are more purplish with a slightly more subdued ruby red. So although not obviously bi-coloured the different hues make the flower dazzling in its beauty. It is scented, but not as powerfully as some of the old-fashioned varieties but its exceptional colouring and reliability more than compensate for this. It grows well to just under 2 metres and has good, long strong straight stems. A really useful member of our sweet pea plants.

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.

Growing Millennium

If you were to frequent lots of sweet pea competitions, you would notice that Millennium is about the most popular red sweet pea to exhibit. Its vivid and vibrant jewel-like colouring is enormously attractive and unusual. It will add pizazz to any arrangement of foliage or flowers being excellent for cutting and will jazz up a selection of pastel sweet peas (think Cathy or Just Julia) while holding its own against some of the more brazen types - King Edward VII springs to mind. Grown over a teepee in a border it would act as a wonderful beacon of colour or try threading it through a perfectly white climber like Jasmine Officinale or the striking blue clematis Elsa Spath.

Features

• Colour: ruby red/purple
• Stem: very long
• Height: 1.8 m
• Type: Spencer
• Scent: light
• Flowering: June to August
• Planting Months: March-June

Did You Know? 

Millennium was introduced in the year 2000 by Unwins. Its breeder was D M Jones. Spencer sweet peas are always flamboyant and large in size and come in every colour bar yellow.

Millennium Sweet Peas like well worked, moisture retentive soil. Adding organic matter really makes a difference and is best done the autumn before. But on the day is very much better than not at all. Your plants will do best in open ground, but you can get good results planting Sweet Peas in window boxes and pots of sufficient size - allow at least 3 litres per plant and remember that these are quite deep-rooted plants. In containers, the ideal planting mix is 50% compost, 40% topsoil and 10% well-rotted manure. Ordinary potting compost is OK, but you will get fewer flowers.

A range of supports can be used from twiggy branches to willow wigwams to posts with netting stretched between. Whatever you use, do the construction work before planting. Think about the position - Sweet Peas can cope with a little shade but flower better in full sun.

Space plants about 30 cm apart and about 5 cm from their supports. The hole should be deep enough to plant the full length of the rootball and allow enough so the soil finishes level with the lowest pair of leaves. Check to make sure they are climbing well every week or so, as they grow quickly. Tie into their supports if not.

Sweet Peas biggest need is for water - they are incredibly thirsty plants. So water well after planting and make sure they never completely dry out. They are greedy too so you will lengthen their flowering period if you give them a high potash and phosphate fertiliser every 7-10 days once buds begin to form. Home-made comfrey liquid is perfect or Tomorite will do - especially if you are on a sandy soil.

Cut the flowers as they develop pick them, otherwise they run to seed and stop flowering.