Scarlet Emperor
The default runner bean, and still a good one. Early, heavy, open pollinated and sold everywhere.
Scarlet Emperor is the runner bean most Irish gardeners have grown at some point, usually without choosing it, because it is the packet on the rack. It has earned that position: it starts cropping early, it keeps going until the frost, the vivid scarlet flowers pull in every bumblebee in the neighbourhood, and it is open pollinated so you can save your own seed indefinitely. Modern varieties beat it on stringlessness and on setting pods in bad weather, not on vigour.
Quick facts
- Botanical name
- Phaseolus coccineus
- Type
- Heirloom
- Category
- Climbing, scarlet flowered
- Difficulty
- Easy, good first crop
- Hardiness
- Tender, no frost tolerance
- In Ireland
- Grows outdoors unprotected
- Germination
- 7 to 14 days at 12 to 25C
- Sowing depth
- 5cm
- Spacing
- 20cm apart, 60cm between rows
- Height
- 3m
- Position
- Full sun
- Containers
- Grows well in pots
- Sowing to harvest
- 12 to 16 weeks
- Harvest
- July to October
Sowing and harvest calendar for Scarlet Emperor
Months shaded below are the reliable windows for Irish conditions.
Where to buy Scarlet Emperor runner bean seeds in Ireland
Irish suppliers that stock this, so postage stays domestic and seed arrives in time to sow. These are plain links, not paid placements.
Order online
- Quickcrop Irish Sligo based, sowing and harvest months on every listing Ballymote based, lists sowing and harvest months per product and ships across Ireland. Visit Quickcrop , Co. Sligo
- Brown Envelope Seeds Irish Organic seed grown and saved in West Cork Grows and saves its own certified organic seed in West Cork, so the varieties are already adapted to Irish conditions. Visit Brown Envelope Seeds , Co. Cork
Garden centres and mixed retailers
- Mr Middleton Irish Posted from Dublin, one of the varieties they always carry Mail order arm of a long established Mary Street shop, carries the familiar named varieties the organic specialists skip. Visit Mr Middleton , Co. Dublin
- Woodie's Cheapest packet, click and collect nationwide Dublin headquartered chain, part of Grafton Group. Cheapest per packet and the only nationwide click and collect option. Visit Woodie's
Why it suits Ireland
Runner beans want cool damp air and a soil that never dries out, and Scarlet Emperor is a vigorous old variety that makes the most of exactly those conditions. In a normal Irish July it will run to the top of a 2.4m cane and keep going.
Earliness is its other advantage here. Our season is short and unreliable at the front end, so a variety that starts cropping in late July rather than mid August gains you weeks of picking before the light and the weather turn.
The one weakness worth knowing about is pod set in poor weather. Scarlet Emperor is entirely dependent on bumblebees, and in a fortnight of cold wet wind you will get flowers and no pods. That is not a fault of the variety so much as a fact of Irish summers, but it is the reason many growers now put a white flowered variety in beside it as insurance.
Growing notes
Sow indoors in pots from late April to mid May, 5cm deep, and plant out at the end of May or in early June. Alternatively direct sow in June once the soil has warmed.
It is genuinely vigorous, so give it 2.4m canes driven at least 30cm into the ground and tied hard where they cross. In an exposed garden set the row end-on to the south west and check the ties again in July when the weight of foliage doubles.
Soak the base of the row weekly once flowering starts. Dry roots at flowering time is the main reason a Scarlet Emperor drops its flowers.
Pinch out the growing tips at the top of the canes to stop the plant making a wind-catching tangle overhead, and to take most of the blackfly with it. Then pick every two or three days from late July until the frost.
Common questions
Can I save seed from Scarlet Emperor?
Yes, it is open pollinated. Leave a few pods at the end of the row to swell and dry on the plant until they rattle, then shell out the big purple and black mottled beans and dry them thoroughly indoors before storing them somewhere cool and airtight. Runner beans are pollinated by bumblebees and will cross with another runner bean growing nearby, so if you are only growing one variety the seed comes true. Stored properly it stays viable for three or four years.
Does Scarlet Emperor get stringy?
It will if you let the pods get away from you. It is not a modern stringless variety, so pick at 15 to 20cm while the pods are still flat and the beans inside have not started to bulge. At that stage they need no more than topping and tailing. A pod picked a week late needs the edges stripped and is still tough in the middle.
Is Scarlet Emperor good for pollinators?
Very. The bright red flowers are worked constantly by bumblebees from July onwards and it is one of the more useful things you can have flowering in a vegetable garden in late summer. That matters practically as well as ethically, because those same bees are what set your pods.
More runner beans to consider
Moonlight
AGMOpen pollinated / Climbing, white flowered
The answer to an Irish summer that keeps the bees indoors. Sets pods when a scarlet variety just drops its flowers.
Growing notes and stockistsHestia
Open pollinated / Dwarf, bicolour flowered
The runner bean for exposed Irish gardens and patios. Knee high, so there is nothing for the wind to knock over.
Growing notes and stockistsPainted Lady
Heirloom / Climbing, bicolour flowered
Grown as much for the flowers as the beans. Lighter cropping than modern runners, and worth it anyway.
Growing notes and stockists