Sweet Pea Bishy Barnabee Mix

Lathyrus odoratus 'Bishy Barnabee Mix' Our House Blend Sweet Pea

Our personal hand-picked house blend — bringing together the Sweet Peas we love most from our trials at Salle Moor Hall Farm. The 'Bishy Barnabee Mix' delivers the full cottage Sweet Pea palette in a single packet: ruffled Spencer-type frills, intense traditional fragrance, generous cutting stems, and the romantic colour range that gives a cottage cutting garden its quintessential character.

This is our hand-picked house blend, curated from the Sweet Peas we grow and trial each year on the farm. The selection brings together varieties chosen for fragrance (the foundation quality of any proper Sweet Pea), cutting length (long sturdy stems for the cottage vase), and a romantic colour range that delivers the complete cottage cutting palette — soft pinks, deep crimsons, pure whites, rich purples and the bicolour picotees that elevate Sweet Peas above ordinary climbing flowers. Hardy annual (H3) — vigorous climbing habit reaching up to 2 metres on appropriate supports.

The single most rewarding climbing annual you can grow: fragrant, productive, easy from seed, and the cottage cutting flower that turns a simple jam-jar arrangement into an event by virtue of fragrance alone.

A note on growing

Sweet Peas are hungry and thirsty climbers that reward proper preparation. They have long taproots and need deep pots from the start.

The two sowing approaches:

• Autumn sowing (October–November) — best results. Sow in deep pots or root trainers and overwinter in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse. Plants develop a massive root system over winter, producing stronger plants and earlier flowers (May onwards) the following year.
• Spring sowing (January–March) — sow indoors at 15°C maximum (cool conditions are essential; high heat actually causes germination failure). Plants out late April or May.

Soak seeds in tepid water for 2–4 hours before sowing to soften the hard seed coat and improve germination rate. Sow 1cm deep in deep pots or root trainers. Pinch out growing tips at 10cm to encourage bushy branching habit.

Plant out in April or May in full sun in rich fertile soil — Sweet Peas demand the richest most generous soil in the garden. Dig in plenty of well-rotted manure or compost before planting. Provide sturdy support immediately — trellis, wigwam, netting, or twiggy hazel — Sweet Peas cannot climb without something to twine around.

The golden rule for Sweet Peas: PICK, PICK, PICK! Cut every flower as soon as it opens, regardless of whether you need it indoors — leaving flowers on the plant signals it to produce seed pods, which immediately stops further flower production. Daily picking through July and August maintains the flowering season into autumn.

⚠️ Toxicity warning: Sweet Pea seeds look very similar to edible garden peas but are mildly toxic if eaten. Keep packets away from children and pets. The pods are not for eating.

Where it shines

As the cottage climbing annual — Sweet Peas earn their place against any vertical surface (trellis, fence, wigwam, archway), providing both visual cottage beauty and the most powerful summer fragrance available from any climber. In cottage cutting gardens for the most-cut, most-given-away, most-vase-filling flower in the catalogue. As a children's gardening flower — large easy seeds, dramatic fast results, irresistible fragrance.

Plant alongside

The cottage-garden classic: combine 'Bishy Barnabee Mix' with Ammi majus (Bishop's Flower) for the delicate frothy white lace that's the florist's favourite Sweet Pea companion. With Cornflower 'Blue Ball' for the timeless blue-and-Sweet-Pea cottage combination. With Cosmos 'Purity' for matching white substance and cottage romance.