Picking Colorful and Fragrant Sweet Peas
The colorful and fragrant sweet pea flowers are blooming so beautifully at my Bedford, New York farm this season.
The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is a garden classic - producing beautiful blossoms with the most amazing scent. Sweet pea seeds can be sown into small pots of compost in autumn and overwintered indoors, or planted directly into the ground come spring. We planted ours along the fence in my vegetable garden and some on the fence of my flower cutting garden. And, over the last couple of weeks we've picked bunches of gorgeous sweet-smelling flowers to decorate my home.
Enjoy these photos.
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- The old-fashioned varieties of sweet pea are grown for their vibrant colors and intense fragrances. Most sweet peas will begin blooming in late spring or early summer.
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- This one is a bright salmon to peach color. Originating in the southwest of Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean, sweet pea has been cultivated for use in gardens since the 17th century.
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- The flowers feature one large, upright rounded petal, two narrow side petals, and two lower petals. Luckily, the stems are sturdy enough to hold up their profuse flowers. Here’s a light lavender and white variety.
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- We planted sweet peas along the fence of the vegetable garden. Sweet peas work well here, attracting bees and other pollinators needed for the vegetables.
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- The leaves are pinnate with two leaflets and a terminal tendril, which twines around supporting plants and structures, helping the sweet pea to climb.
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- Here are the tendrils they use to grasp anything that’s a quarter-inch or less.
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- Sweet peas offer one of the widest color ranges in the plant kingdom, including crimson reds, navy blues, pastel lavenders, pinks, and the purest whites. These colors are found as solid colors, bicolors, and streaked or flaked flowers.
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- To keep the vine productive, it’s a good idea to cut flowers frequently and remove the faded blossoms. Some varieties tolerate heat better than others, so check the seed packets carefully when planting.
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- This crisp white one grows along the fence of my flower garden. White sweet peas are very reliable performers. As annuals, sweet peas thrive in full sun, although in warmer climates they do well in a location that receives partial sun, especially in the heat of the afternoon.
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- Sweet peas prefer rich but well-drained soil. A slightly alkaline soil pH of about 7.5 is ideal for sweet peas.
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- Here in my Winter House are several freshly cut bunches of sweet peas.
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- Once they are ready to be arranged, Enma removes each bunch and places them in a small tub of water keeping like colors together.
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- She gathers them one stem at a time holding them securely in one hand while she positions them with the other – blossoms faced out.
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- Here are the most beautiful salmon colored sweet peas.
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- After selecting a good amount of flowers, Enma cuts the stems with a very sharp scissor leaving them about six to eight inches long. When trimming, always keep in mind the size of the container.
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- Then Enma places them in the vase of cool water – they look so beautiful with their green straight stems.
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- Here, one can see the stems with at least a few inches below the water line. For the longest vase life, pick sweet peas when there are at least two unopened flowers at the tip of a stem.
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- Enma does the same with the other bunches, taking each flower and facing the open blooms outward so they look best. While sweet peas fill any room with sweet fragrance, they are a short-lived cut flower, lasting only four to five days in a vase.
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- This variety is flecked and shows such pretty purple and white blossoms. The first sweet peas were introduced to Britain in 1699 when a Sicilian monk, Francis Cupani, sent seeds to Dr. Robert Uvedale, a teacher from Enfield, Middlesex. They became hugely popular in North America, both as garden plants and cut blooms. By the late 1800s, growers in the US shipped trainloads of sweet peas all over the country.
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- Here is a bunch of solid colored pink sweet peas. To prolong the cut flowers, change the water in the vase once or twice a day, and place the vase of flowers out of direct sunlight and away from drafts.
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- And here are the cut pink and white sweet peas.
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- Once all cut, these flowers make a gorgeous arrangement – and I wish you could smell them; the fragrance is intoxicating. I hope you are able to enjoy the beauty of some cut sweet pea flowers in your home this season.
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