Friday flowers - a bunch of sweet peas

    I mentioned Henry Donald's charming little book A Bunch Of Sweet Peas a few years ago, but I read it again the other day and it doesn't fail to delight. It's a true story, about a sweet pea competition run by a national newspaper in 1911 and specifically about one of the entrants, Denholm Fraser, minister of the Borders village of Sprouston. As I said in my previous post, "what is staggering is the scale of the competition which Mr. Fraser went in for: 38,000 bunches of sweet peas were sent from all over the country for judging at London's Crystal Palace, the boxes unloaded from horse-drawn Royal Mail vans by 500 Boy Scouts "with Scout Masters to preserve discipline", all of whom were accommodated on the site in tents. Can you imagine the like of that happening today?" It's an uplifting tale, guaranteed to make you smile.

    My sweet peas wouldn't win any prizes, but this first bunch of the year gives me a lot of pleasure. These were autumn sown (I have another batch of plants which were sown in the spring and are yet to flower), and they are from Sarah Raven's Onyx, Venetian, and Vintage Silk collections. I wish you could smell them!

Comments

[Lotta]

I can smell them from here! One of my favourite scents of the summer.

[Anne B-A]

My mother gave me this book years and years ago and I love it. I have never come across anyone else who has a copy! I am going to hook it out later on today and revisit it. And you have sweet peas flowering in Edinburgh???? What is your secret?

[Dark Puss]

I bet Onyx would like to sniff Onyx!

[Cornflower]

I'm not very good at picking flowers; that is, I tend to be very conservative and leave them to be enjoyed in the garden. These are another matter, though!

[Cornflower]

No secret other than a greenhouse, Anne!
Mine is unheated, but as soon as the seeds germinated (and I took them into the house for a few days for that to happen), I put them back under glass and they spent the winter happily there. I think they got too comfortable, actually, because their considerable growth meant that separating the individual plants for planting out was difficult, and a few stems got broken. There are new shoots from below, though, so hopefully they will eventually be none the worse for it.

[Cornflower]

Cats, eh?

[Freda]

Oh, envy! Must autumn sow next year! My spring sown are only about 6 inches high just sitting waiting for it to get warm for more than a few days at a time...Matucana are brilliant. Autumn sow and root trainers so I don't have to wait this long next year. Enjoy them all.

[Claire]

A very belated thank you. Your original post on this little book was an inspiration for me. Kind friends grew sweet peas for my daughter's wedding in July 2009. After the wedding I recalled this book and bought a copy for them all. So a belated thank you - sorry it's taken me so long.

Like Freda mine are a long way from flowering but they were bought as plants from a garden centre and desperately need some sun.

[Cornflower]

Yes, the root trainers seem to have done a good job. My spring sown plants are 2-3 feet tall, but we could do with some warm weather and some proper rain!

[Cornflower]

Claire, I'm delighted that little recommendation came in handy, and how nice of your friends to grow sweet peas especially for the wedding!

[Claire]

Perhaps I should have said copies for them all - I didn't make them share!