If you like a bit of colour and fragrance in your garden and your home, then look no further than sweet peas. These lovely flowers are super easy to grow, they smell great and they look lovely outdoors or in a vase.

We sell three varieties of sweet pea seedlings at Awapuni Nurseries; dwarf mixed, fragrant beauty and cut flower mixed. All smell lovely, but fragrant beauty has a stronger smell. And all can be grown for cut flowers, but the cut flower mix will produce more blooms on longer stems.

Lastly, as you’d expect, the dwarf variety doesn’t grow as tall as the other two – it only grows to 30-40cm which makes it perfect for growing in borders, bedding and pots. The other two varieties grow to around 120-180cm and, like most sweet peas, need something like a wall or trellis to trail and climb over.

You can order your Awapuni sweet pea seedlings from our online shop or grab some next time you’re at your local supermarket or Bunnings. The good thing about purchasing Awapuni Nurseries seedlings (rather than seeds) is that all the hard work of getting the seeds to germinate and grow into established seedlings has already been taken care of. This means they're pretty much guaranteed to grow, and they'll develop faster - resulting in earlier flowers.

When you’ve got your seedlings you need to find a place to plant. As mentioned, sweet peas grow well in pots - particularly the dwarf variety which don't require staking and will cascade over the edge nicely. The other two varieties will also grow well in large pots. You'll just need to tie four or five bamboo stakes into a tee-pee shape to support the plants as they grow. And make sure you plant them in some good quality potting mix to really help them along their way. 

If you're growing in the garden, all you need is a sunny, well-drained spot next to a wall or some sort of support structure. Add some netting, wire or light wooded frame for the flowers to climb up. 

Plant the seedlings about 20cm apart from each other. And don't hold back! The more you plant, the more colour and fragrance you'll add to your garden and have for enjoying in your home. You can expect to your sweet peas to flower in around 10 to 12 weeks from planting. 

Remember to water but avoid over-head watering to prevent them getting powdery mildew. And, because they're annual plants, pick off the flowers once they're spent (this will encourage more flowering), and remove the whole plant when it's stopped flowering.