The simple charm of small blooms
Sometimes, smaller is better. Fruits and vegetables of modest size often have more concentrated amounts of minerals and vitamins, and are more intensely flavourful, than larger sizes of the same kind. It’s easy to pump up sizes artificially, with chemicals and copious supplies of water.
Over the years, I’ve observed also that some of the smaller sorts of flowers display a simple charm and are often far less demanding than their more dazzling kin of imposing size.
Take clematis as an example. Except for one large-flowered variety, a darkstriped, pale mauve Barbara Dibley that grows over and blooms atop an old flowering quince shrub, all my clematis vines now are the easy-care, small-flowered kinds.
I have the popular spring-blooming, scented Clematis montana, which requires only a slight post-bloom tidying up, as well as several reliable and easy C. viticellas, which flower in summer and need only a cutting down in late winter, and one C. texensis, a type that is more tolerant of warm, dry conditions than most clematis. My C. texensis ‘Duchess of Albany’ flowers all summer in a hot, sunny spot. It, too, needs only a cutting down in late February. Flowers are borne on the new stems.
Large-flowered clematis varieties, though imposing, in general are more demanding of excellent growing conditions and are more prone to ills such as clematis wilt. Dahlias. For similar reasons, most of the new dahlias I’ve added to the garden in recent years have been small-flowered ones like the delightful collarettes, which have a little ruff of petaloids that surround the centre disc and rest against a single row of petals that are often in a contrasting colour.
The first dahlia to bloom, early in July, this year was Raeann’s Torch, a showy red and yellow collarette. Close behind was Ferncliff Showoff in purple-rose and white. Both are from Ferncliff Gardens in Mission.
Huge “dinnerplate” dahlias, often packed full of petals in tightly packed double-flowering form, are showpieces to be sure, but they usually bloom later, and they require more exacting conditions, support to prevent flopping on their elaborate faces, and defence against earwigs that flock to the shelter of the thick, many-petalled blossoms. Sweet peas. The flower that has demonstrated the most stark difference this year between forms with large and small blooms is the sweet pea. I usually start the seeds indoors in January or early February, for transplanting as early as conditions permit. This year I did not get the indoor sowing done, and seeded outdoors instead.
All the older, small-flowered varieties germinated perfectly and began producing a mass of intensely fragrant flowers early in the summer. The newer, highly bred, large-flowered ones did not do so well.
The large-flowered sweet peas that did emerge and grow have produced a few, gorgeous blooms. Gwendoline, a “Best Seller” in the Chiltern Seeds catalogue, is porcelain-perfect in bright pink over white. Heathcliff is handsome, as one would expect from that name, in dramatically dark navy blue. chilternseeds.co.uk.
I can’t say that the small-flowering sweet peas have the exotic aura of the large beauties, but they grow and endure, easily, and they release enchanting clouds of perfume onto the garden.
Two heritage sweet peas that I’ve found to be particularly easy-growing delights are Matucana and Painted Lady (West Coast Seeds). Matucana, an Italian heirloom introduced to Britain in 1700, has small but vivid, deep violet and maroon flowers with a heavenly scent. Painted Lady has been grown in gardens since the 1730s. The flowers are pink and white, and highly fragrant. Easiest of all. In early May I began catching the distinct scent of sweet peas in a corner of the back garden, near the back fence, which is low and allows me full view of the neighbour’s back garden. A quick look revealed a broad mass of unsupported sweet pea growth beginning to bloom.
A few sweet pea vines that grew there last year had been left long enough to release matured seeds, which germinated early in the spring to yield super-strong, sprawling stems and a huge mass of fragrant flowers, enough for endless bouquets through early July.
My neighbour’s unplanned sweet pea bounty shows the way to possibilities for the earliest, most prolific sweet peas possible. Self-sown plants are almost always stronger and provide more abundant yields that person-sown plants of the same kind.