Ode to the sweet pea

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Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight; With wings of gentle flush o’er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things, To bind them all about with tiny rings.
 – John Keats, English Romantic poet

Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.
 – Boris Pasternak, Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator

I’ll leave the actual odes to the sweet pea, or lathyrus, to John Keats and Boris Pasternak, the real poets. I’m just going to gush about the new favorite flower for this season and share pictures of my bounty. Last year was the first season I’d planted seeds and they actually sprouted and gave me these beautiful bi-colored, deep blue-and-magenta flowers for many months. I carefully saved the dried seed pods and gave the seeds away and kept a handful.

I went crazy and bought half a dozen or seven different varieties at Annie’s Annuals. Last fall, I had David and Jacob cut down the two shrubs that were originally planted when we remodeled the backyard in the late spring of 2017, which David was not happy about doing. Apparently, our landscape architect was sad about it, too, because we had broken up the flow of the shrubbery from all around the perimeter of the backyard. But I felt that the shrubs were overtaking the small patio area and I wanted to look out in the kitchen/family room windows during spring and summer and see greenery and color!

So I planted the fledgling plants and here’s where my visual ode to the laythrus begins. Enjoy!

Once the shrubs were taken down, David and Jacob painted the ugly red fence that we’d painted more than 20 years ago. I resurrected the book-reading fairy with broken wing that we had gotten maybe as many as 25 years ago and that had been forgotten in the side yard. (Side note: We had buried our first family dog Bailey’s dog toys after she had passed away in the side yard and planted the winged fairy to watch over her toys.) We put up trellises (little did we know that this wouldn’t be enough for the bounteous sweet peas). I planted a few tulips and may plant more to give some color for very early spring. I also planted three different columbines, or aquilegia, in the front to provide some color at the bottom of the planter box. I also later planted a low-ground violet viola and the lacy orlaya grandiflora, or Minoan lace, annual, to provide some pretty white contrast to smaller bouquets. More on them later. This is March 23rd.
The sweet peas have started climbing the trellis and the columbine are starting to take flight. This is April 21st.
Early May: We had secured the trellis to the fence and put up smaller trellises in the front. We would soon need to tie strong string across various planks to keep the vines upright. As you can see, I planted them too close together (lesson learned for next season).
Mid-May: This is what I see from the kitchen table. This is exactly the scene I had envisioned last fall for this spring.
Early June. Despite all the support systems, ad hoc as they were, the vines were so heavy and laden with blooms that they pitched forward. What ended up happening is that we have a little bit of a natural overhang. I can’t get to the blooms close to the fence on the other side of this overhang – something we’ll have to figure out for next year.
Mid-June in full bloom: And here you can see the orlaya grandiflora below my favorite sweet pea variety, Frances Kate.
This is the view when you walk out of the downstairs utility room – way better than looking at two overgrown bushes!
Another favorite besides the Frances Kate is the North Shore sweet pea.
I strategically planted the orlaya grandiflora beneath the Frances Kate and North Shore sweet peas. Imagine them in a small bouquet together!
The early bloom of the orlaya grandiflora, or Minoan lace.
And when they go crazy blooming. Now you know why they’re called Minoan lace, originating from the island of Crete.
The ever-favorite butterfly-kite-like columbine is a perfect companion in the sweet pea planter box. And white is a nice compliment against the green, pink, white, and magenta colors all around this columbine.
So one thing I didn’t think of was the attraction to bees! Lots of them. A nice surprise is seeing birds coming in and out, and the hummingbirds hovering and resting on the dewy vines and seeking shade beneath the overhang.
This is one of the first bouquets in the spring – later April. The stems were wonderfully long, which meant I could use slender vases. This is a mix of Bix, Solstice Crimson, Nuance, and Bix.
More long-stemmed bouquets. As the season wore on, the stems have become shorter and shorter, which is something to note when procuring vases for sweet peas for the season – getting enough vases with the right height and circumference for the beginning and middle-end of the season!
A typical harvest every third day – seriously. I could spend an hour cutting and then putting them in short vases or cups.
An early mix of sweet peas when they were just starting to bloom.
This set, which I found at T.J. Maxx, is originally for utensils for an outdoor party, but they are much prettier as vases. From left to right: a mix of Blue Vein, Solstice Crimson, and Annie B. Gilroy in the first vase; a mix of North Shore and Cupani in the second vase; and a mix of Nuance and Bix in the third vase.
Another mix in a vase that had several “pockets” for bunches of flowers.
I have become a collector of tiny bottles and vases. Even a small vintage pitcher that I found in a vintage store is perfect for sweet peas – Bix on the left and Frances Kate on the right.
One harvest produced a row of sweet-smelling blooms. Oh, and that’s my artist friend Tana’s painting hanging in our library!
And now for individual attention to each variety. The Solstice Crimson didn’t last long and produced few blooms. It came up early and died early. I think that was due to planting too many of them so close together. Next year, I’ll find a singular spot for this beauty.
The Blue Vein was also one that struggled. Few blooms, tiny blooms. But oh so pretty up close. Again, I’ll have to find another spot so this one can shine next year.
Look at the Blue Vein up close and you’ll see why it’s aptly named! They look like butterflies on a stem! Lovely, lovely!
This gorgeous variety is called North Shore. Delicately marked and bi-colored, this sweet pea is going to have its own place in the garden so it doesn’t get lost among the similarly colored sweet peas.
Here is a small bouquet of North Shore sweet peas and the seed pods of love-in-a-mist.
I think this is a North Shore slowly deepening its colors.
Nuance (pink) mixed with Bix (cream tinged with pink)
Close-of mostly Nuance with some Bix at the top.
Like cotton candy up close! A mix of Nuance and Bix.
I tend to stuff the sweet pea bouquets because there are so many blooms. However, a few, some tender and not opened yet, give a Victorian feel, especially when put into a bottle that looks Victorian.
Cupani, a frangrant heirloom sweet pea.
Another version of the Cupani. I’m not quite sure whether these blooms are from the seeds of last year’s sweet pea. A couple of the varieties look similar!
I saved the best for last: Frances Kate. This variety has remained long-stemmed even at this stage of the season. I love how the stems twist and turn, so all you have to do is put them in a small vase and they create their own architectural shapes, almost like a Japanese arrangement.
Ruffly blooms, they’re like tiny full skirts.
A symmetrical shaped arrangement.
Another arrangement.
A wild, natural-looking arrangement.
Here is the vintage pitcher that is well suited for long-stemmed Frances Kate sweet pea.
I love the long, curved stems of the Frances Kate, the ruffly petals, and the intense purple markings and edging.
Another close-up.
And the last close-up.
When I write, I love having the bouquets around me, so I can enjoy their fragrance and their intense colors.
And our broken-winged, reading fairy is also happy to be among the sweet peas in his new spot in the backyard patio garden. I’ve learned some lessons for next year – don’t plant so closely, spray for powdery mildew earlier, set up the trellis and string/wire much earlier, and find other places in the garden so that I can accommodate the current varieties I planted and the others that I didn’t get at Annie’s Annuals but will next year. Hope you enjoyed the sweet pea mini-garden. Stay tuned for an expanded version next year!