Sweet peas provide the scent of summer, and this old-fashioned cottage garden favourite, with its ruffled flowers, has graced our gardens for centuries. Relatively easy to grow, sweet peas have been called ‘the Queen of Annuals’ ‘and it would be hard to think of another annual that could compare for popularity,’ says specialist grower Philip Johnson of English Sweet Peas and Johnson’s Sweet Peas.
Modern breeding has tended to focus on reliable flowers with a wider range of colours, including bi-colours and flakes with veined markings, at the expense of fragrance, so it’s worth checking labels for old-fashioned and heirloom varieties with smaller blooms yet a sweeter aroma.
‘What used to be a few varieties of highlyscented, relatively small flowers, the sweet pea has been developed over the years for the home gardener to enjoy a plant that really does do it all,’
