Topic: length of sweet pea stems

[caroline7758]

The first pickings from my sweet peas had nice long stems,but now they are all about 3" max. Is there anything I can do to get them longer, or are they just running out of steam?

[laurieuk]

Very hard to answer without knowing a lot more , but my own starting flowering  in May and were good enough to win the local show in June bit  now having been let go for a week (holiday) the stems are much shorter. Have you kept all flowers cut, are your plants grown as cordons, are they dry at the roots, without full details no real answer is possible.

[caroline7758]

Thanks, Laurie- good to know that a champion grower like you has the same problem! I think they probably got dried out when we were away for a long weekend, too.

[InfraDig]

Thanks for that too! I was starting to wonder if I had imagined it!

[Deb P]

Mine are behaving similarly, I put it down to underwatering, so gave a good soak and a liquid feed to see if that makes a difference. Still picking loads of blooms every 4 days or so....

[sunloving]

I think this is just the normal development , however I find that if they are a bit drawn , ie in a bit more shade they will extend and so if you are going to do a late show I'd untie them and wind around a bit at the bottom so that you can retie the upper sections at the lower more shady end of the support.
 Isn't it lovely to have them for cutting they smell so fabulous!
 X sunloving