Now is the perfect time to start talking scents
watering choice, it’s hard to plump for just a few. The dwarfs and sprites seem unappealing and modern, scentless varieties are out. Many of the heirloom or Old Fashioned varieties are too short-stemmed, so it’s the Spencers for me. Developed from a single variety discovered by one of Earl Spencer’s gardeners at Althorp in 1899, these are the showiest and prettiest on the plot. Think of sweetpeas and you imagine ruffles of pastel hues, but the colours I love are darker: the purples (such as ‘Dark Passion’ from lathyrus. com), the maroons (‘Cupani’ and ‘Almost Black’ from johnsonssweetpeas.co.uk), and the magentas (the perennial Lathyrus latifolius is the most vibrant). There’s even a lime green (‘Limelight’, from sweetpea-seed.com). Seed company Mr Fothergill’s runs an annual sweetpea competition at Capel Manor College in Hertfordshire. Two years ago, the breeder Sydney Harrod stole the show with ‘Valerie Harrod’, a huge pink Spencer with good scent and the biggest, pinkest flowers. Last year, his ‘Heaven Scent’, with unbeatable fragrance and pale salmon flowers, was the prize-winner. Both varieties are available from Mr Fothergill’s. Bring your plants out into the garden in April, plant them in fertile, moisture-retentive soil and build a frame for them to climb. Mine hold fast to a row of tomato spirals that screens my seating area from the rest of the garden (and all the jobs I should be doing), where I can lounge and inhale their fragrance. Hazel wigwams and chicken-wire screens also make efficient supports. Make sure the soil is deep and fertile, and water your plants in well. Pinch out the leading shoots, nipping the stem above a set of leaves to develop strong plants, and pick each flower as it blooms. The more you pick, the more you’ll get. SWEETPEA SUPPLIERS Johnson’s Sweet Peas (01795 420 330; johnsons sweetpeas.co.uk) Mr Fothergill’s (0845 371 0518; mr-fothergills.co.uk) Owl’s Acre Sweet Peas (078 4000 8030; sweetpea-seed.com) Roger Parsons (01243 673770; rpsweetpeas.co.uk) For information, see lathyrus. info and sweetpeas.org.uk Excavating my compost heap and spreading barrow loads onto my beds, mixed with builders’ bags of crumbly two-year-old leaf mould.