I might master sweet peas in time for our 30th

Fiona is prepared and expecting great things, the bed is dug over with compost – but will Henry Eckford rise to the occasion?

Another wedding anniversary has come and gone. It is the 15th. Although it seems like it was yesterday that we tied the knot. Apparently 15 is a crystal year. But this time the chief and I agree that a simple card will have to do. The thing is, shopping opportunities are rather limited. So beggars cannot be choosers.

As the day dawns I give him a pink girlie offering that I find at the back of my desk drawer. And he presents me with a macho black and white one of bearded Victorian ghillies in kilts. Ah well! It is the thought that counts. And some would say it is a relatively modest milestone anyway.

We eat home-made pizza. We share a bottle of fizz and the MacNaughties sigh with relief that this year no one is getting in the car to go and eat out.

If the MacGregor had been able to buy flowers for this anniversary the textbook suggests they should have been roses. But my favourite is the sweet pea. And I can report that the seedlings I planted a few weeks back are doing very nicely, thank you.

They are about four inches high and, while it is too cold at night to plant them out, the bed is ready. All dug over, with masses of compost at the bottom.

I am prepared. And I am expecting great things. The sweet pea is a great flower. And like anything of beauty it is one that creates real rivalry. Back in 1911 the Daily Mail newspaper ran a competition to find the country’s best sweet peas.

Folk grew them the length and breadth of the land. Nearly 40,000 bunches went by train to London for judging. Then the prize was a massive £1,000.

In the event, the contest was won by a Scot. Janet Fraser produced her showstoppers at Sprouston near Kelso. She came first, and her husband, the parish minister, came third.

It is a lovely story. Especially as the couple used some of the money to renovate the village church, which has since been known as the Sweet Pea Kirk.

Janet had a flower named after her. Alas, I cannot find it on the internet. But there are other glorious blooms. Among them a ‘Goldmine’, an ‘Enchanted’, a ‘Winston Churchill’ and a ‘Richard and Judy.’ There is also a ‘Henry Eckford’ – he was the Scottish horticulturalist who perfected the grandifloras back in the Victorian and Edwardian ages.

The sweet pea is a great flower. And like anything of beauty it is one that creates real rivalry

Born near Edinburgh, Eckford trained on estates in Inverness and Perthshire before moving to England to work. He later set up a nursery in Shropshire.

The ‘Henry Eckford’ comes with bright orange petals. It is a work of art and I doubt mine will be anything like that.

But we will try! And when we have been married for 30 years and the sweet pea is the anniversary flower, perhaps I might have mastered the art…

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