Perfect pretty pea family
In each of our programmes in our current Channel 5 series, we have featured a large family of plants. The pea family was one of them and what a wealth of interesting and exciting plants it encompasses. As well as all the usual edible suspects, there are trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials. Everything from the humble clover – what a masterpiece of construction it presents – to the cercis tree that my mum grew from the seeds in a pod. Using both the clover and a sweet pea, we looked at the structure all members of the family possess, the standards or banners at the back of the flower, the wings at the side and the all-important keel that contains all the sexual apparatus which, when pollinated, will result in a pod. We planted a lespedeza, one of the most attractive of all late-flowering shrubs with arching growth and splendid magenta pea flowers. We also looked at wild gorse growing on Haddon Hill and used gorse from our own hedge to protect newly sown peas. What a wonderful family and so important to us humans.