Sweet peas offer lots of charm, beauty

For more than a century, gardeners across the country have been growing sweet peas. In the 1930s, box cars of sweet pea seeds were shipped from California producers to customers throughout the country. This fragrant climber graced gardens everywhere.

English gardeners knew sweet peas as "the Queen of Annuals." The flowers have an air of romance in both their scent and appearance. These unique, charming annuals show vivid colors, exceptional fragrance and wonderful length of bloom.

Once you grow fragrant sweet peas, you never forget their appeal. The sensuous fragrance is a captivating blend of honey and orange blossom, and the intensity varies from one cultivar to another. If the flowers had no other charms, they are worth growing for this alone. The species' scientific name, Lathyrus odoratus, describes how fragrant the plants are.

If you love rainbows, you will also love sweet peas. They offer one of the widest color ranges of any flower, including crimson red, navy blue, pastel lavender, pink and pure white. Color configurations include solid colors, bicolors and streaked or flaked flowers.

Although the flowers are a little hard to describe, the ruffled blooms look like little fluttering butterflies.

Sweet peas, like their garden counterparts, are legumes. With the growing interest in edible flowers, it is important to be specific with naming. Garden peas (Pisum sativum), such as English peas, podded peas and snow peas, are edible, while sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) are poisonous — especially the flowers and seeds.

The moniker "sweet pea" was supposedly first used by the poet Keats in the early 1800s. Lathyrus odoratus is the common sweet pea, but other Lathyrus species are worth mentioning. (In the genus Lathyrus, there are 110 species and innumerable cultivars.)

Lathyrus latifolius, a cold-hardy perennial, is available in four colors and a mix. Lathyrus sativus produces small gentian blue flowers, while Lathyrus chloranthus has yellow flowers. Breeders have tried unsuccessfully to bring the elusive yellow flower into the commercial Lathyrus odoratus.

While the botanical classification is interesting, gardeners usually classify them in four ways: habit, flower form, fragrance or day-length response.

Plant habit can include climbing, where tendrils wind around a support and can grow 6 to 10 feet depending upon conditions, and cultivars or compact, where plants reach 8 to 24 inches tall and need no support. Select your site and then determine the desired habit.