The First of the Sweet Peas

What went wrong, what went right, and my pick of the bunch . . .

So far the sweet pea is the only flower that has been the subject of an entire post on this blog, the significance of which is not lost on me. When the first sweet pea of the year bloomed last weekend I instantly cut it and took it in to show to Drew, who said, “That’s your favorite flower, right?” Maybe. My favorite flower varies by season and by month. I’m fickle and I hate picking favorites when I know that there will be something new to catch my eye right around the corner, but sweet peas are definitely up there.

I tried to explain it to Drew, how sweet peas appeal to me in the same way hollyhocks do. The old-fashioned-ness. The grandma quality, though I can’t remember if my grandmothers on my dad’s side had them in their gardens. I didn’t grow up with sweet peas, and I don’t know if I even saw one until I grew one a few years back, to be honest. But that’s another part of their appeal to me, that wispy delicateness that makes them so hard to find out of season or at mass market flower vendors. Sweet peas aren’t fancy flowers, yet the only flower stands I see them being sold in are definitely fancy. They just don’t travel well enough to hold up at the flower market. Some of mine don’t even travel well enough on the trip from the terrace to the kitchen without dropping a bud or two, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

I first grew sweet peas maybe five years ago back in Portland, when I picked up a seed packet on a whim at Fred Meyer and grew them up a shaded fence. I didn’t know anything about sweet peas then, so I just pushed the seeds straight into the ground—no compost or fertilizer or anything. Even though they didn’t get a lot of sun, and even though the fence backed up to our neighbor’s Roundup-happy yard, they still grew well enough for me to fall in love with them. The smell of them (I grew ‘High Scent,’ as I did this year, too) and the shape of them. The sturdy stems that sometimes feel like wire covered with floral tape, topped off by fragile little ruffles. I loved them and would pick them every other day so I could always have a little bunch in a vase on my nightstand.

By the next year I’d already done my homework and planted them around a teepee in a raised bed, digging in plenty of compost, and they did so much better. Longer, sturdier stems, larger flowers. I can’t remember how long they stayed around for, but they lasted later into the season than I thought they would, especially considering that Portland summer days jump into the 100s more than they ought to. I think that the raised bed the sweet peas were in was shaded out by afternoon, which kept the blooms coming until maybe mid-summer.

The instructions on the seed packets will tell you that sweet peas love full sun, but I’m finding that, like the rest of the hardy annuals I’ve been growing, their sun-love has a limit. I read somewhere that sweet peas grown in the southern US need afternoon shade, while their northern counterparts can take all day sun, but this terrace is so sun-baked that I might as well be growing in South Carolina again. When I spotted the first bloom here it was in the mid 80s and I could tell that the sweet pea plants were suffering, wilting away in the sun. So I moved both pots to the side of the terrace that gets afternoon shade. I prefer the way the teepees look with the rest of the plants on the sunnier side, but If I left them there I knew I wasn’t going to have sweet peas for long. It’s fine, though. I placed the pots right outside the living room window, so the view looking out onto the terrace now is very flowery.

All four varieties I planted: ‘King’s High Scent,’ ‘Black Knight,’ ‘Flora Norton,’ and ‘Castlewellan’

‘King’s High Scent’ bloomed first, followed by ‘Castlewellan,’ ‘Flora Norton,’ and, finally, ‘Black Knight.’ So far ‘Castlewellan,’ all pink and cream, is my favorite. It’s a good sized flower, probably the prettiest of the four, though ‘King’s High Scent’ comes close (also, whoever chose to name it ‘High Scent’ wasn’t kidding). ‘Flora Norton’ is a beautiful color, a purple-blue, with the longest of the stems, but the flowers are small, which might be due to other factors. I’m not sure.

Overall I’m surprised that the sweet peas did so well in pots, even though it’s a common way for people to grow them. I always assume that everything I grow in containers will turn out to be puny and sad versions of what they were when I grew them in the ground, but that’s not the case with these at all, at least when it comes to their size.

I will say that they’re not quite as strong as they were when I grew them last time. The stems droop a little, the buds sometimes fall. I guess that bud drop is a serious sweet pea issue—fortunately most of the buds here are going on to bloom, but some stay small and yellow before falling off. Might this be a temperature issue? I don’t think we’ve had too many extreme changes in temperature lately, but maybe it was the heat we had last week? Or it could be that I put in too many plants per pot, which, yeah, I kind of knew might be a problem when I planted them, but heaven forbid I let any go to waste! Very precious things, these sweet pea plants.

Garden Notes:

• In typical fashion, the garden decided to burst into bloom right after my last update post. Currently in flower: ‘Chantilly Light Salmon’ snapdragons, cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade,’ two of the nasturtiums, gaura, and geranium ‘Rozanne.’

• Another flower that’s doing perfectly well growing in a container: the snapdragon. I went ahead and picked a bunch of stems today before they went over, and they’re gorgeous, so great for bouquets. I know what I’m growing more of next year.