Sweet Pea

Where it grows

Wild Lathyrus odoratus grows in rocky scrub of Sicily and southern Italy. It reached England in 1699 via the Sicilian monk Francisco Cupani, who sent seeds to a Middlesex schoolteacher; from there it became the obsession of the Victorian florist trade. The Spencer strain — large frilled flowers — emerged from Earl Spencer’s gardener Silas Cole around 1900.

How to recognise it

A tendril-climbing annual one and a half to three metres tall, with paired oval leaves and branched tendrils that wrap around any thin support. The pea-shaped flowers, two to five centimetres across, are carried on long stems in clusters of three to seven and exhale a sweet, fresh perfume that intensifies after warm afternoon rain.

Garden & cultural uses

Sweet peas demand cool roots, rich feeding, and constant cutting to produce flowers for weeks rather than days; an old cottage-gardener’s rule is “cut every day or it stops.” The seeds must be soaked before sowing and tend to be sown in autumn for the strongest spring plants.

In safety

Sweet pea is decorative only — its seeds are inedible, and the related Lathyrus sativus, grass pea, can cause neurological damage if eaten in famine conditions.