Sweet Peas

...for me is the very sweet perfume of Sweet Peas, or Lathyrus odoratus, to give them their proper name.



So, what are they?

Little round green things, eaten with a knob of butter and roast lamb on Sundays? No, 'fraid not.

Sweet Peas are flowers.

Lathyrus odoratus is the Latin name they are known by. They are related to the pea that we eat, the plants growing in similar conditions ...
...get a hint of the sweet perfume they have.

Sweet Peas can grow on plants up to 9 foot tall, traditionally they grow up something, clinging on with their little tendrils or trailing over something like a wall. Ten years ago I saw a wall of sweet peas growing in Corfu and the scent as I walked past was wondrous, I looked to see how they were growing and contrary to what I thought, they weren't growing from the base up the wall, clinging ... more

What reminds you of summer? For me one of the things that reminds me of summer are the flowers in the garden, the perfume that lingers on the air as the long days turn to dusk and a velvety night falls.
I do like to be outside in the evenings watching the sun go down and the moon, sometimes a huge golden globe in the sky rise, to light the garden with little pools of brightness in the dark.

One of the scents of summer for me is the very sweet perfume of Sweet Peas, or Lathyrus odoratus, to give them their proper name.

So, what are they?

Little round green things, eaten with a knob of butter and roast lamb on Sundays? No, 'fraid not.

Sweet Peas are flowers.

Lathyrus odoratus is the Latin name they are known by. They are related to the pea that we eat, the plants growing in similar conditions and similar ways. In fact, if you grow a row of peas and wander along the row when they are in flower you will get a hint of the sweet perfume they have.

Sweet Peas can grow on plants up to 9 foot tall, traditionally they grow up something, clinging on with their little tendrils or trailing over something like a wall. Ten years ago I saw a wall of sweet peas growing in Corfu and the scent as I walked past was wondrous, I looked to see how they were growing and contrary to what I thought, they weren't growing from the base up the wall, clinging as they grew, they were planted along the top of the wall and trailed down the wall in a curtain of colour and scent.

Nowadays you can buy bushy varieties to grow in a border or a pot on a paito, you can buy trailing varieties to grow in a hanging basket, but the ones I grow are the tall variety because I have found that these are the ones that flower best and smell sweetest.

The plants themselves shoot up at a great rate in the spring given ideal conditions, they are semi hardy, I have some that self-seeded in the same place for a few years before they died out. Mostly though they need to be sown late in the autumn, to be over wintered in a sheltered spot or greenhouse or early in the spring. A warm sunny windowsill will do although if they get too much heat early in their lives they will grow tall and leggy much too soon.

The leaves are fairly small, about a couple of inches long by half an inch or a little more wide. They are a mid green, verging slightly on the grey side of green so not bright or showy in themselves.

The plant stems can be quite brittle and care is needed while picking the flower otherwise you could break the stem off stealing from yourself future flowers. I pick my flowers using small scissors because the flower stems can be quite tough which is when there is a danger of breaking the plant stem.

I watch and wait and wonder, "Will they flower?" or "Will something eat them" or "Will we get enough rain to stop them dying?" And as spring slowly turns to summer I see the first small buds atop tall straight stems. They vary in length, I have had sweet pea flowers at the top of 12 inch stems, true and straight, and I have had some at the top of 1 inch stems, or stems that got caught up in some of the tendrils and curling all over the place.

So what colour are they?

Ah, I am tempted to say "sweet pea colour of course" but that wouldn't tell you much. Sweet peas come in all colours of pink and mauve and white. The white ones are beautiful, small oddly shaped flowers, often three or four on the end of a stem, although as often only one. They range from the palest pink or mauve, with just a hint of colour to the deepest, darkest, richest colours. I have had some that were red, a bright red slightly pink, but never yellow. Some are mottled or narrowly striped; some are a colour with a different coloured edge to each petal. Some are just a clear flat colour but no less beautiful for that.

So, here we have a tower of greeny grey leaves climbing merrily up the wood and string that I made my frame out of, and standing up are some stalks with little buds on the top, and one day I see some colour, pale pink, as the petals open. For me it always seems to be the pale pink ones that flower first of all.

Each individual flower has a couple of standard petals, which are rounded, a couple of wing petals that stand out sideways below the standard petals and a keel petal which is a little petal that sticks out below the wing petals, making them one of the more unusual shaped flowers around.

The perfume.

Ahh… The perfume. Pick a bunch of sweet peas and put them in your room, go out for a few minutes and I can almost guarantee that when you re enter you will smell the flowers, they will scent a whole family sized room, not strong but very sweet and pleasant.
Hold the bunch to your nose and inhale deeply and be overwhelmed by the perfume that attacks the senses. It is fairly strong, fairly sweet, quite pungent, and very unusual. Along with the sweetness there seems to me to be an almost nutty tone to them.
If you have ever been tempted by a sweet pea fragranced room spray or eau de toilette to spray on your body and thought it was exactly like what you would expect sweet peas to smell like, then you are wrong. Sweet peas have a very individual perfume and no make of scent or room spray I have tried out have come anywhere near. In the deep dark winter there are many things that remind me of sweet peas, but once they open their petals and emit their beautiful fragrance I realise that nothing really comes close.

So, where and how to grow them?

I have seen sweet peas in Spain, Corfu, and of course in the British Isles. They grow in the middle of the country and they grow in the south, I am not sure they would grow well in the far north reaches of Scotland, but I might be wrong.

Sow the seeds either in November or February, inside, in pots or outside in a sheltered position. I grow mine in very tall flower pots during the winter and plant them out at the end of April, these dates would need to be adjusted though the further up the country you live. Or you can sow directly into the soil where they are going to stay for the summer, this is a very good way of sowing them and not having the bother of raising them indoors which gives brilliant results if a little later.
I live on the south coast near the sea where we rarely get frosts in winter anymore, and a few years mine haven't died down completely and grown up again in spring, this doesn't happen often though, so they should be considered an annual and more sown each year.

Tips:
Dig deep, and add any enriching material you can find to the planting place. Newspapers to conserve moisture, rotted manure or mushroom compost, compost from the bottom of last years bin.

They like a sunny place but enjoy some moisture at the roots.

They don't like it to be too windy because they grow pretty tall.

I put up a wooden frame in the spring and twined old string round it, something for the little tendrils to grab and wind round as they grow. Bamboo canes are good, but too slippery alone so once again add some string, pea sticks if you can get them are brilliant or there is netting especially for peas and sweet peas to grow up.

If you add too much fertiliser you will get loads of lovely green leaves but not many flowers.

I sow a couple or more varieties because that gives lots of different colours, shades and markings as well as a slightly longer flowering season.

Once flowering starts, pick, pick and pick again, once the flowers start to go to seed the plants will give up trying to re produce themselves and there will be no more flowers.

So there we have, our bunch of beautifully coloured flowers, scenting the air around us, the perfect gift for anyone around. I pick mine about every three days and take a bunch round to my mum, they are her favourite flowers and I hope to keep her in sweet peas until the autumn.

As cut flowers, in water, they don't last very long. Two or three days sees the best of them and after the first day the perfume abates and you no longer notice it when entering the room although there is a little left if you get close and smell the bunch.

One of my favourite flowers, but then I have so many, sweet peas come fairly near the top of the list.

Thanks for reading, Sue:0)

 

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