Growing sweetpea to cover a fence

[Maggiethecat]

Want to cover a bit of ugly fence until I decide which permanent plants to put in.

What kind of support will I need for sweetpea? I picked up some lightweight netting in Lidl today, which I reckon I can use for a number of things so won’t be wasted but wonder if I can use it for sweet pea to grow up or do I need something more sturdy?

You could always use some bamboo sticks to give the netting addional support spaced, say, two feet apart.

I was thinking about adding extra support too!

Light weight netting attached to some canes will be fine. I’ve used string string between several canes as a make shift support system before now.

Just as a side note: tall foxgloves (which are biannual so you have a wait) are lovely mixed in with sweet peas for manky fence coverage, and are sow and forget type planting!

https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/parkside-expanding-wooden-trellis/p10012182?pageId=10041766&tabCode=Current_Sales_Week

I bought these 2 yrs ago from lidl and used them in deep trough type pots for sweetpeas. Mine are a bit flimsy now, so I'm looking at a permanent type trellis going forward. I used a cane stick on either side to stop the trellis collapsing down.

I did wonder about using string but hadn’t worked out how I would do it!

Never grown foxgloves. Are they ok with cats?

Sorry, I didnt answer your question OP. The netting would need to be tethered tightly and secured well onto a frame, otherwise it would flop down as the plants grow. I'd keep the netting for another purpose, and get a trellis instead. The plants can get 6ft tall and fairly heavy. The expanding trellis I linked above it on sale at lidl this week.

Just saw those in Lidl when I bought the netting but thought they might be too thick for sweetpea. There’s a 25% off Parkside products now!

Xposted!

@Maggiethecat foxgloves are poisonous to all animals, cats, dogs and humans. (As a lot of plants found naturally can be) But I’ve grown foxgloves and had cats and dogs for all my life and never had a problem. Nor have any of the neighbours cats and the feral population had any interaction with foxgloves. Heathers however did get flattened as makeshift cat and dog beds. Wouldn’t bring foxgloves indoors though.

Cats and dogs are far more intelligent and than humans give the credit!

Sweet peas are lovely, but don't last particularly long. How about growing runner beans? Or is that mad?

You can get perennial sweet peas, pretty but don't smell. All sweet peas are greedy feeders,you need a trench and plenty of organic matter. What type of soil do you have, which aspect? I find sweet peas do better in semi shade,stops them getting powdery mildew . Again semi shade, plenty of honeysuckles,sunnier jasmine,Rosa rugosa.

Will grow runner beans for the beans, never considered using them to cover fence 🤔

It’s clay soil, not very rich in that spot. Gets lots of sun. Dug up crocosmia which grew well in that area.

Chuck a load of nastursium seeds in the ground, they make a nice display up a fence

These are my runner beans from last year. Clay soil also, but a few bags of compost/manure added at the top of the bed. I've managed to grow them in large troughs also. There is actually a fence behind this pic- but you can't see it at all!

I grew sweetpeas up and over a fence last year, it worked really well. It's one with openings between slats so I just tied string round the posts and across so it had something to hold on to.

I didn't do anything special, just sowed directly into the ground. I'll do it again this year as soon as it stops raining for a bit.

Have become a bit set on the idea of sweetpea 😊

sounds the kind of fence I have

Yes, mine has bigger gaps. The problem was the little 'hooks' had nothing to hang onto, so I just wound some cotton thread round and though the slats so could use that. I just had to make sure the new shoots found the support.

They would be poisonous if ingested. As would the seed of sweet peas, I presume, since one pea is sufficient to kill a dog.

Sweet peas or cat? 🤔

They would be poisonous if ingested. As would the seed of sweet peas,

The latter shouldn't be an issue anyway if you're deadheading to prolong flowering.
Cats will probably come across foxgloves elsewhere on their travels ... they're unlikely to snack on them.
Afaik it's mainly lilies that are a problem for them because of pollen brushing on them rather than anything they'd deliberately eat

Lillies are the only plant I won’t have, simply because the pollen can settle on a cats paws and fur and be ingested as part of their grooming process.