What to grow WITH sweet peas?

Sweet peas are lovely in the spring, but what's good to take over their spot when the weather turns warmer? What do you like to pair or layer sweet peas with?

One time I tried them with my (very young and not very big) Golden Hops 'Aureus', and it worked really well. I usually plant the old-fashioned Cupani or Matucana sweet peas (they're purple and fuchsia/magenta), and they look great vining among the chartreuse hops. I'm not sure how well this would work if the hops plant was bigger (it might crowd out the more delicate sweet peas), but the chartreuse/purple combo is a winner. Probably any dark-flowered sweet peas would look equally good against the golden hops.

Thanks; I'll look into that. I'm new to annuals (well, not vegetables) and this is really helpful.

I like to plant my sweet peas on a trellis behind mixed larkspur. The colors go well togeather and it seems to better cover the trellis. I have also used red poppys in the past.
Caren

Hmm, well, as I'm putting sweet peas in a few places, I'll have a chance to try all these ideas. Thanks very much!

I follow them with cukes Zeppy.

Or where you are at try starting moonvine up the trellis when they start fading.

I'm toying with following sweet peas this year with some Japanese morning glories Emmagrace traded seed of to me late last summer. Maybe a hedge of purple basil in front of the less vigorous JMGs? They'd have to be grown on a bit in pots before the sweet peas decide they've had enough summer heat. Or a hedge of white 4'Oclocks in front of a dark violet purple JMG? That last combo would really be enhanced by a stand of ferny, chartreus-y dill in the vicinity.

I have lavender and lady's mantle in front of my sweet peas, as a sort of footing for them. Catmint works as well. Yellow roses come up at intervals in this planting, and bloom sporadically through summer. I've thought about adding some Verbascum to the interval planting , just one here or there coming up as self-seeders.

So many ideas in this thread fit with a yellow and blue/violet/purple theme. I'd love to work in the golden hops and cukes over a series of "gates" that you walk through and under along a path with yellow roses coming up through blue shades of larkspur and sweet peas with lady's mantle and lavender etc. as footing.

So, Ivy, which yellow roses are you growing? And if you could grow any yellow roses you wished in this sort of scheme, what would they be?

It would be fun to follow the larkspur with forms of Salvia guarnitica (Purple Majesty and Black and Blue have made sturdy, self-supporting bushes for me in the past - sure-fire magnets for hummers.)

Another footing I like to use for yellow roses is rue (some break out in a skin rash around it). Clipped back, the rue will stay thick on the edge against a surprising amount of shade - not total.

I love that planting scheme, Bluespiral!

I have Good Ol' Summertime Roses in that bed, but they are fairly new and I am not totally happy with them. I wanted something very fragrant, and stupidly asked a salesperson for their opinion. When I got them, they were not as fragrant or as prolific as I was expecting, but maybe as they mature, they will do better. The color is a little more washed out than I like. I also have one lonely Graham Thomas which is lovely, but doesn't quite match anything. I have Golden Showers, which is poised for takeoff this year next to my front door.

Do you have any suggestions for yellow roses that you like? I had some that were reminiscent of Mermaid that were on the property when we moved in, but they finally bit the dust last year after 8 years of pest and disease problems. I cried when I took them out.

To bring the house and landscape together, I planted a row of standard Forsythias on either side of the house heading back. In between the standards, I have Ami Pasquier Hydrangeas. Eventually I will grow clematis up throught the forsythias and maybe the hydrangeas too. There are Boxwood for structure, and a Lilac at the corner of the house. All of these can be used for sweet peas to run and ramble through, too.

Rue is beautiful, I especially like the foliage and it doesn't bother me.

I love the idea of Salvias and larkspur as well. Caradonna or the newer Evolution would be really striking, too.

I have also put in a couple of General Sikorski clematis.

I may not be much help in giving advice about roses, here. I stopped spraying a few years ago because I didn't like the possible effect of those chemicals on hummers and praying mantisses and all the web of life that those beings signify.

Plus, the shade is so bad here that any conventional hybrid tea or floribunda just sits there masquerading as a piece of kindling. Plus, voles just ate the roots out from beneath one of my David Austin roses 'English Garden' last summer, and rabbits love new shoots and woodchucks will take anything left for desert.

So, my expectations of roses are reduced. I rely on their "companions" to be the main show and to mask the roses after their May-June bloom. They're capable of blooming under better circumstances, but anything later on, for me, is a gift.

The roses I am growing, from a blue gate in the hedge at the far back, begin with Windrush. I like the bare, pale hint of yellow on that rose that glows at the end of a rather dark tunnel and reflects its pale gold in gold-variegated liriope, ivy and hosta 'Frances Williams'. Daylilies carry that color farther down to a cross path to another gate in the hedge, where Alberic Barbier foams over an arbor and throughout the hedge in that spot. Along the cross walk to that gate, I have rooted cuttings of English Garden over the years, which bloom over scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue', blue pansies and the rue. Between the two gates, Graham Thomas is espalliered in two dimensions behind the daylilies for about 20' (the canes sometimes get as long as 10' each). The dark, purple-leaved viola labradorica self-sows among the paler yellows and is reflected by similarly colored leaves of Prunus cistena in the center of that quadrant.

If I were starting all over again and had sufficient sun and space, I would also love to be able to grow the rambler 'Goldfinch', climber 'Leverkusen' and shrub 'Fruhlingsgold' (not sure I have that last name right). One of my favorite garden books (Passionate Gardening" by Springer and Proctor) mentions 'Aicha' "...pale yellow semi-single, repeats flowering" as being especially winter-hardy - would love to hear from anyone who has tried that. I prefer paler yellow roses, because they seem to mix better with those dark, wine-red roses like William Lobb, which I would also grow if I were starting again. For now, Othello gives a great spring and later fall show further down the path where there's more sun, underplanted with caryopteris - too stinky for the varmints and wonderfully silvery till frost. I hope to standardize a "dwarf" white buddleia behind Othello in the center of that quadrant next spring (Buddleia nanho alba - those "dwarf" Buddleias can grow to 6' or so, which is perfect in a small garden where you nip out leaves to 3' from the ground and then let the top bush out - I wonder how that would be underplanted with the blue cynoglossum?)

And has anyone tried Ilse Krohn - another small climber/large shrub of cream-blushed yellow, also said to be very cold-hardy?

Another black-toned flower these pale yellows do so well with is those small-flowered, later-blooming, more prolific, dark-purple clematis viticelli's like Etoile de Violette (does best for me) and Polish Spirit (another good one).

Well, the late summer chorus also includes monster dahlias and morning glories - I suppose there are more refined choices, but I love the messy hubbub at the end of the season.

Don't give up on the Good Ol' Summertime roses - Windrush thought it was just a stick of kindling for the first few years, too, but has become quite a presence lately - some say to give a rose 5 years before chucking it, and that has proved to be the case for me.

Kathleen has been researching yellow roses - perhaps we can get her to chime in here.

Hey, Zeppy, didn't mean to hijack. Are you there? I would love to know which sweet peas you are planting?

Bluespiral- Your garden sounds so lovely. If I were doing it again, i would never have planted the evening primrose that are taking over in a big way!

The yellow roses I have my eye on are Rugosa rose Agnes, Sombreuil, Sunsprite, Charlotte, Jude the Obscure, Morning has Broken,Elina and Blythe Spirit. Teasing Geogia always catches my eye as well, and I've always dreamed of having a Lady Banks rose, maybe entwined with Wisteria Prolific.

I am super interested right now in peaches and apricot pinks. In my backyard circle garden, I am planting King Size Navy blue, Wiltshire Ripple, Matucana, Geoff Ames and Miss Wilmott sweet peas with dark purple Iris Swingtown, Dark Knight Delphiniums, Rozanne geraniums, Abraham Darby, Sharifa Asma, and Just Joey roses, Eschcholzia Summer Sorbet, Coral Reef Poppies, Salpiglossis Kew Blue, some salmon colored yarrow, Heritage roses, and Catmint. I hope it will all blend the way I see it in my mind's eye.

Zeppy, I'm trying sweet peas again this year, and am glad to have stumbled on all these great ideas and color discussions. I'm planning to follow mine with morning glories, and some short annuals or lettuce in front of them.

bluespiral, your gardens sound amazing; I'd love to see pics. So many roses I'm interested in that you're growing to.

Ivy, I'd love to have a Lady Banks, and hear that it's quite stunning entwined with wisteria. This year I've seen 2 catalogs are now listing Lady Banks as hardy to zone 5 or 6, that last year said zone 7. I'm hoping this updated info is true; I'm certainly going to try one now.
Neal.

Here's a thread I started in curb appeal to discuss color and texture combos, and would love ya'll to come on over, lol. These ideas would be welcomed. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/576725/
Neal.

Oh, still here. Taking notes and such and generally being overwhelmed by all the great information. I just have Old Spice Mixed but am also getting Beaujolais, Mrs. Collier and Janet Scott for now

This message was edited Feb 18, 2006 9:52 AM

Zeppy, thats a stunning combination of sweet peas. I love the color selection, especially Beaujolais! Very different.
Maybe some Dianthus in whites with red/pink centers or picoteed would look nice and pick up the color of the sweet peas nicely.

i like a lot of color so i plant dahlias and they come up when the sweet peas go out in my area.

I just discovered dahlias last year. What a great plant! I grew Lavender Perfection. It was super!

i put forget me nots and love in a mist seeds, with a few money plants. All anual seeds,
Then when the weather gets warmer and the powdery mildew inevitably sets in , i pull those suckers out and in go the dahlias, after re ammending the soil. Sweet peas are real easy to pull right up.

Do annuals get any better than Forget-me-nots, Love-in-a-mist,,and Sweet Peas? I think not.