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The gardeners and farmers know Sweet Peas (Lathyrus Odoratus) for hundreds of years now. Fragrance of the sweet peas is beyond comparison and simply takes you to heavens. If you are planning to grow sweet peas in your garden then you must pick the right variety. These days genetically engineered hybrid varieties are also available and you may not get the same fragrance you are looking around. In order to avoid any embarrassment further you must read the label carefully while buying the plant or seeds.

Autumn is generally the best season to sow the seeds of sweet peas in your garden. The plant will grow and flower during the autumn itself and you can pick the flowers in next spring. There are three most important factors responsible for healthy growth of sweet peas. Open area with direct bright sunlight, soil with good drainage, and an ideal soil pH of 6.5 are three factors that you need to ensure while growing sweet peas.

If the soil in your garden is heavy in nature, you do not require pre-treatment as it contains enough moisture but in case of light soil you definitely require pre-treatment. You may add a little lime to the soil (almost 100 grams per square meter) or you may also add gypsum (300 grams per square meter) if you find heavy loamy soil in place. Such additions would bring the soil pH level within the range of an ideal value of pH (6.5).

I would suggest that you should dig the soil around eight weeks before you start planting the seeds. A good fertilizer with no copper content must also be added to the soil just before two weeks of sowing the seeds. In order to help the sweet peas plants grow you may build trellis for their climbing.

A little preparation with seeds prior to their sowing would also be more advantageous. You should soak these seeds in to warm water for at least a night. Seeds thus will swell and become five times bigger in size than to the normal ones. It is a simple technique to let the seeds germinate in natural way and that too very quickly. Results of this technique can be best observed with light soils.

There must a minimum space of 20 centimetres between two successive seeds and at the same time, you must ensure that the minimum depth for sowing should also be two centimetres. If you ensure this, your plants will certainly grow with lateral branches and with good quality cut flowers.

Regular pruning of laterals and plants will give you the best quality flowers that will be most suitable for gifts, exhibitions, and other occasions. Keep the off-shooting seeds safe from sparrows. Sparrows love the sprouting seeds and they will eat them away if you have not covered the beds properly. You may uncover the beds once the seeds have fully germinated .Within a very short span you will feel happy seeing your sweet peas plants growing up the trellis.

A little care will give you a long lasting pleasure with blooming sweet peas in your garden.