Promise Sweet Pea Seedlings

Promise Sweet Pea

A dashing sweet pea of two parts, Promise has a pink standard petal that gradates back to white in the lower part of the petal while the wings are a dazzling white. It is a full on frilly sweet pea with undulating edges and bags of charm. It has a lovely fragrance - not quite as strong as some of the more antique, heirloom sweet peas - and there are about four flowers per long, strong stem. It harks back to and improves upon the first and most loved bi-coloured sweet pea, Painted Lady. 

Browse our sweet pea range.

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.

Features

• Colour: bi-coloured, pink standard and white wings
• Stem: long, straight
• Height: 1.8 m
• Type: Spencer
• Scent: Good
• Flowering: June to August
• Planting Months: March-June

In Your Garden Design

We love the idea of this sweet pea climbing up a pergola intertwining with a pink rose like Aloha or a white one like Sombreuil. Its flowers are obvious enough to really stand out and the mingling of the scents would be very special. We offer several pinks, whites or a combination of the two in our range of sweet peas so that you could grow some stunning bouquets - try Cathy, Gwendoline, Anniversary and White Supreme for proper pink and white perkiness. Promise is an outstanding cut flower, lasting well in a vase and certainly lives up to all of its promises.

Did You Know?

This sweet pea was raised by Roger Parsons (who supplies our seeds)and introduced onto the market in 2008. He holds the National Collection of Lathyrus odoratus and was awarded the Henry Eckford Gold Memorial Medal for services to sweet peas by the National Sweet Pea Society.

Promise Sweet Peas do best in 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.