Anniversary Sweet Pea Seedlings

Anniversary Sweet Pea

Anniversary is one of the most cherished Spencer varieties of sweet pea, especially loved by exhibitors. It is a white sweet pea with a broad picotee of pale pink that draws attention to the wonderfully undulating petal edges. It has a fantastic scent and is particularly strong growing, rarely dropping its buds. The thing that especially sets Anniversary apart is its really long straight stems on which you can find up to six flowers, making it a boon for florists. All sweet pea aficionados rate this sweet pea extraordinarily highly partly because its season of flowering is so long - it will keep flowering long after most other sweet peas have given up the ghost. Browse our 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.

Mark it well

With its combination of pastel shades and many flowers you could be forgiven for just allowing Anniversary to be the single sweet pea to make its mark in your garden, but how much more fun to combine it with other Spencers like the pure White Supreme or blushing Gwendoline. If you wanted to try an old-fashioned partner to devastating effect, look no further than the dark good looks of Black Knight - a very different sweet pea in style and colour. Like all sweet peas, keep picking the flowers to ensure that your plant produces more and more. Once it starts to set seed the number of flowers will dwindle dramatically.

Features of Anniversary Sweet Peas

• Colour: white and pale pink picotee
• Stem: long and straight
• Height: 2m
• Type: Spencer
• Scent: strong
• Flowering: May to October
• Planting Months: March-June

Trivia

Anniversary was raised by Bill Truslove and introduced to the market by Marchant in 1986. It is one of the most exhibited of sweet peas.

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 10-15 cm apart and about 5 cm from their support. 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.