GARDENING : Small Seeds Fulfill Sweet Promise With Abundance

Flowering sweet peas are one of the few flowers that actually perform as promised. They provide masses of colorful bouquets in pastel or vibrant hues, with the added bonus of such sweet fragrance that a vase filled with these richly colored, delicately shaped blossoms literally does scent an entire room.

In Orange County’s mild winter climate, sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) bloom in the winter months when little else does. Now is the right time to plant the seeds of this annual to get fragrant blossoms by December or January. An investment of just a few dollars for several seed packets will reward the enterprising gardener with blossoms lasting through June or July.

Unlike many plants, sweet peas perform best when grown from seed.

A mainstay of English and European gardens with their fragrant heralding of spring, sweet peas were long popular in America but fell out of favor a decade or two ago.

“Sweet peas lost their popularity in just one generation as plants sold in six-pack containers began to dominate nursery shelves,” said Renee Shepherd, owner of the mail-order seed company Shepherd’s Garden Seeds in Felton, Calif.

“Twenty years ago, most people grew their plants from seeds. But as it became so easy to buy the pony-packs, the large companies began producing plants that flowered while young, thereby attracting buyers.”

If a person has never seen or smelled sweet peas, it can be hard to imagine so much color and fragrance emerging from a small, round dark seed.

Sweet peas have a reputation for demanding lots of space and contemporary small-size lots or garden beds may discourage would-be sweet pea growers. But hybridizers are solving that problem by introducing diminutive plants that form well-behaved, free-standing mounds. There are even varieties suitable for containers or window boxes, so even people with limited garden space can enjoy them.

The winter catalogue of the popular mail-order company Smith & Hawken includes a windowsill sweet-pea kit containing the dwarf variety, Knee-Hi, and the small vine variety, Royal Cuthbertson. Complete with recycled cardboard window box, potting soil, 60 seeds and planting instructions, the kit will turn a window or patio into an easily managed flowering sweet-pea factory. The company plans to offer more varieties in catalogues to come.

For those who prefer their sweet peas in the ground, numerous nurseries in Orange County sell seed packets. Be sure to select those that perform best in this region.

According to Mary Lou Heard, owner of Heard’s Country Gardens in Westminster, certain varieties outperform others.

She stocks four--Old Spice, Early Mammoth, Little Sweetheart and Supersnoop--all from Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, which that company selected after trial-growing numerous varieties. “These are the most prolific and worthwhile,” she said. “We need the strains that can stand up to our mild, wet winters.”

When it isn’t raining, the warm days and cool nights of our winter season make sweet peas susceptible to powdery mildew. This fungus disfigures the plant and can eventually kill it.

“I don’t try to spray if powdery mildew appears, it’s the price we pay for growing sweet peas,” Heard said. “Instead, that’s why I select varieties that can withstand our unique climate.”

Old Spice is a collection of heirloom varieties from Italy. The vine strain yields intensely fragrant flowers that are very heat resistant.

Early Mammoth is indeed an early bloomer. The American-bred strain was developed for vigor and early bloom and can easily climb eight to 10 feet.

Little Sweetheart is a dwarf vine variety used in containers, hanging baskets, or as a border plant.

Supersnoop is a bush variety that will only grow two to three feet tall, so it’s suitable for edging a border since it doesn’t produce climbing tendrils.

All four varieties produce flowers in a range of colors, including white, pink, blue, red and lavender.

Heard interplants Old Spice and Early Mammoth together in her display garden. Visitors can enjoy the sight and fragrance, plus gather big bunches of the flowers to take home.

“I always encourage people to help themselves because sweet peas need frequent cutting to produce more blooms,” she said.