Sweet peas are much loved
and admired by many gardeners worldwide. Philippa Foes-Lamb
delves into their delicate world and is fascinated by their
history.
Sweet peas, Laythrus odoratus are without a doubt one of
our most loved annual flowers. If you have ever been given
a bunch of these beautiful, fragrant flowers, you will know
how powerful their feel-good factor can be.
Somehow sweet peas manage to get under our skin and once
there, they remain for life, evoking strong memories and
emotions. Gardeners and non-gardeners alike are drawn to
their sweet fragrance - the scent from a few stems in a
vase can fill a room.
Ask anyone who has ever grown sweet peas and they will reminisce
about their parents or grandparents who grew them every
year - including where they were grown, the compost they
used and other secrets to success.
So what is it about sweet peas that we find so alluring?
Could it be their wonderful fragrance or is it also the
fragile, seemingly surreal quality of their flowers.
Sweet peas come in a wide range of colours, from white,
shades of pink, mauve, maroon and purple right through to
orange and bright red. There are also bi-colours and flowers
that look as though they have been streaked with paint.
The only flower colour that has not yet been bred is yellow
and this is seen as the holy grail of sweet pea hybridising.
There are climbing or dwarf varieties and the latter are
perfect for hanging baskets, containers or the front of
a flower border.
Seemingly delicate, sweet peas are hardy
and are easy to grow. For many years, sowing seed at home
was the only way to raise sweet peas. These days we are
lucky that various types are available as seedlings in punnets
in local garden centres at various times of the year.
This is particularly handy if you feel you aren't good at
raising things from seed, or if your life is frantically
busy.
Sweet peas need support as they grow and there are several
ways you can provide this.
The traditional method, particularly if you want the flowers
for picking, is to grow them up a trellis or a teepee of
stakes. This allows you to tie the plants up as they grow
and helps to ensure the flower stems will be lovely and
straight.
Sometimes, no matter how good our intentions, we forget
to tie our sweet peas up. In some cases this can cause their
growth to stop completely because their tendrils need to
be able to grip on to something to keep them growing. This
prompts a mental image of a sweet pea feeling completely
frustrated with its tendrils waving in the breeze, so it
decides to sit and sulk as if to say "If you aren't
going to help me, I'm not going to grow".
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