Gardening: Monty Don lays out 'jobs for the weekend'
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Gardening expert Monty Don returned for another instalment of the hit BBC Two show, Gardener’s World on Friday. The lead host of the programme said gardeners should sow sweet peas now as well as prune their hydrangeas and pot on their tomatoes. Sweet peas are climbing plants with pretty flowers that can grow to a height of one to two metres.
The 66-year-old said he had sowed his sweet peas last October and has been keeping them in a cold frame over the winter months.
He said: “The reason for sowing sweet peas in autumn is simply to ensure that you get really nice, big, healthy plants.
“The bigger the plant – particularly the root system – in early spring, the quicker it will grow away, the bigger it will grow and therefore the more flowers it has early in summer.”
Monty said it is “critical” for them to flower in early summer because in July they start to “set seed”.
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Gardeners should aim to get their sweet peas flowering by the end of May to early June.
This will allow the sweet peas to have a “really good display”.
Monty continued: “If you haven’t sown sweet peas yet, it is not too late, but it’s going to be too late soon.
“Sow them this weekend, if you can and you should have a good harvest later in summer.
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“But these ones I would expect to flower in May.”
The gardening expert was planting out a variety known as “matucana” which has purple, magenta bi-colour flowers and a “fabulous fragrance”.
“It’s probably the best-scented sweet pea you can grow,” he added.
The Gardeners’ World lead host sowed three seeds to a pot and then planted the whole pot at the base of each support.
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Gardeners will want to have rich soil and give the sweet peas plenty of food and water.
The sweet peas Monty is growing have been “pinched out” which means they have been pruned as a young plant to encourage them to grow more bushy.
Monty said: “If your sweet peas that you did sow in autumn are really long and straggly and they all get twisted up together.
“Don’t be frightened of just reducing them by half.
“Using your finger thumb, just pinch it out and that will encourage it to be bushy.
“The bushier the plant, the more the side shoots, and it’s the side shoots that produce the plants.
“You will have to tie them in for the first month or so.”
Gardeners’ World can be streamed on BBC iPlayer
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