(Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

DENNIS:

You might say daughter-in-law Dawn Meredith Peck has the uncommon sense in this family.



Or, at least, an uncommon sense of scent, a pursuit of floral fragrance which has driven her to write three columns in this space in the past.



And now this offering, on sweet peas, not to be confused with the character in the "Popeye" cartoons, which predate almost all of you anyhow, so you probably weren't confused to begin with.



At least until now.



MARCIA:



I'm grateful that Dawn is my daughter-in-law, loves to garden as much as we do, is a wonderful writer and photographer, and is filling in for us this week so we can take a much needed nap in the hammock!

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Dawn Meredith Peck

DAWN:

When my husband and I were dating, he often called me "Sweet Pea." So what could be more perfect than carrying a romantic bunch of hand-tied sweet peas up the aisle when we said our "I do's"?



I wanted sweet peas everywhere. I envisioned their sweet heady fragrance filling the air, forever associating sweet peas with our wedding day.



There was just one problem: Our florist wasn't sure she could get them.



You don't find sweet peas for sale at the grocery store the way you would tulips or roses. They're somewhat delicate, so a bit of care is required in their handling and processing: petals can bruise, blooms can suffer random bud drop.



By comparison, sweet peas lack the petal substance of more widely available floral selections. While floral preservative can significantly extend their display as cut flowers, vase life in plain water is much less. As a result, sweet peas could be expensive and hard to find.



For context, my husband and I just celebrated our 19th anniversary, so this was before we could search the entire world for anything with a device that fits in the palm of your hand.



Today a Google search for wholesale sweet peas can get you a box shipped right to your door — but it will cost $2 a stem.



Smaller specialty growers have emerged with more diverse local offerings like sweet peas to compete with the imported — and often sprayed and scentless — more traditional floral selections.



Thanks in part to Debra Prinzing's take on the Slow Food movement — Slow Flowers — consumers and florists have become increasingly educated about the myriad benefits of choosing locally sourced and sustainably grown flowers in season.



We're making floral purchases mindful of our health and the health of our planet. Blooms loaded with the pesticides often used by large-scale conventional growers aren't the best idea for our health or the health of pollinators. Shipping flowers halfway around the planet also comes with a larger carbon footprint.

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Spencer sweet pea 'Our Harry' offers large frilly blooms. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

But 19 years ago, I could only pine for sweet peas and deduce that they were very rare and, surely, difficult to grow.



That assumption was reinforced when I tried for several years — without much success — to grow sweet peas in pots. Sweet peas have long roots and even with large 15-gallon containers — plus an inverted tomato cage with tines lathed together at the top to form a makeshift obelisk — they didn't grow well. My improvised support was not tall enough, the roots didn't have enough space, and — I know now — I didn't water them regularly or evenly enough.



In those early days my bloom "season" was painfully short. The flowers I saw were few and far between — each one a prized treasure to keep close in a tiny vase for sniffing.



When we bought our first house I was finally able to plant in the ground. My results improved and I enjoyed trialing different varieties.



In the ensuing years I've scoured seed catalogs for the most fragrant sweet peas. If you've seen any of my previous guest columns, you may recall I'm always in search of the fragrant: roses (bit.ly/pecksroses), peonies (bit.ly/peckspeonies) and spring bulbs (bit.ly/pecksbulbs).

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Powerfully scented 'Lord Nelson' (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

Heirloom sweet pea varieties typically offer the strongest fragrance, but compared to modern introductions their flowers are smaller, their stems shorter. Newer Spencer varieties have been bred for higher bud counts, larger blooms and longer stem length, but tend to have less fragrance than heirloom varieties.



Thankfully there are Spencer varieties that — to my nose at least — combine the best of both worlds: up to four buds per stem (heirlooms that typically max out at three), larger blooms, longer stems and, most importantly, are still powerfully fragrant.

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'April in Paris' (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

The Spencer variety 'April in Paris' just about has it all: a beguiling ivory bloom with a delicately pencil-thin edge of soft lilac. It epitomizes the romantic look for which I imagine traditional brides still clamor. While nothing to rival the Spencer varieties with the largest blooms, the blooms of 'April in Paris' are a bit larger than heirloom varieties I've grown. They average up to four buds atop 6- to 8-inch stems and they are fragrant. Fragrant as in waft-on-the-breeze, wish-you-could-bottle-it, fill-your-heart-with-happiness fragrance.



I'm sad to admit over the years my sweet pea planting became a bit hit or miss. As our family grew — and my sleep and sanity shrank — I lost track of gardening tasks. One year my seeds soaked overnight for three weeks. There were a couple years after our twins were born when I don't know if I got them planted at all.

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Spencer sweet pea 'Our Harry' offers large frilly blooms. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

Today, our oldest son Sam is in middle school and our twins Henry and Lily just finished kindergarten. And this year we moved to a home with a big, empty yard.



Planning a new garden is always exciting, this time particularly so, because I had the mind-boggling good fortune to be able to plant a 28-foot row of sweet peas. And I got to do it with my daughter.



This is about 25 more feet of sweet peas than I've ever had. While seed quantity is the primary factor in my most abundant sweet pea season ever, thoughtful preparation and diligent tending is responsible for its high quality.



I had no idea the difference relatively small improvements would make. I was more deliberate — I enriched soil before planting, I planted out earlier, I hilled plants up as they grew and I kept them deeply watered on a schedule.

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Fragrant Spencer sweet pea. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

One somewhat surprising tip I found was from a sweet pea exhibitor in Britain — snip off the climbing tendrils and manually tie-up stems.



This seemed especially counter-intuitive. As a twining vine, sweet peas support themselves. Fine tendrils stretch out and grab whatever they can find to hoist themselves skyward until they're out of space at the top of whatever they've found to scale.



But those attempting to grow and show the very finest sweet peas trim tendrils to prevent them from curling themselves about — and gravely distorting — emerging stems and blooms. As I experiment this season, I'm enjoying longer and straighter stems because they're no longer getting pulled and contorted by greedy tendrils.

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Heirloom and modern sweet peas. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

This season, for the first time in my life, I have a bumper crop of sweet peas. I wish I'd kept track of how many blooms we've picked so far, but I know for a Fourth of July potluck, Lily and I harvested almost 150 stems from the first 10 feet of our 28-foot row.



I can't adequately describe how amazed and thankful I am — what luxurious abundance it is — to be cutting sweet peas by the armful when 19 years ago I'd pined so for just a few stems scattered in my bridal bouquet. Perhaps next year for our 20th anniversary, my husband and I should renew our vows. I'll know where to find the sweet peas.

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(Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

TIPS FOR GROWING SWEET PEAS

Sweet peas are annuals and must be planted anew each year.

Soak your seeds overnight to aid germination and plant out as soon as possible at the end of winter. Sweet peas generally thrive in the cooler temperatures of early summer and peter out as increasingly hot weather hits.

Some nurseries have tray packs of seedlings for sale in very early spring. It is more expensive than starting from seed, but it can be money well spent to get a larger plant in the ground early in the season.

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The Pecks' granddaughter Lily at harvest time. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

Sweet peas are twining vines and need a support to climb. Vines are heavy when full of flowers and some varieties can grow over 8 feet tall. If planting a row, use pea netting firmly attached to 6- to 8-foot-tall fence posts spaced about 10 feet apart. On a smaller scale, many attractive ready-made pea trellis and expandable willow wigwams exist. Or fashion your own growing frame by lashing together fallen branches with cotton twine. You could also adopt the more painstaking cordon method of British sweet pea exhibitors and manually tie each vine to its own bamboo stake.

Don't be afraid to cut and enjoy your sweet peas! The more you cut, the more they will bloom. If you don't cut your sweet peas, you hasten their demise as they are extremely quick to form a seedpod which halts new flower production. If you are growing for garden display, rather than the vase, regularly cut off finished blooms to keep your vines blooming.

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Aphids can be a significant pest of sweet peas. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

Professional growers advise harvesting sweet peas before flowers open and using preservative to enjoy longest vase life. Keep your harvest bucket and vases scrupulously clean to prevent bacterial growth.

Sweet peas are prone to having aphids. When arranging for the vase, gently shake or tap blooms against a light-colored surface to knock off any aphid stragglers so you don't find yourself with an uninvited guest at the dinner table.

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Sweet pea tendrrils will grab any available support. (Photo by Dawn Meredith Peck)

Sweet peas grow fast, a vine can shoot above your head overnight. Check your vines at least every two or three days at the height of the season to stay ahead of any challenges. A daily visit is not only good for the soul, it also enables you to harvest stems at optimum time, quickly dispatch a sudden explosion of aphids, or snip off wayward tendrils looking to deform your prized blooms.

Erin Benzakien of Floret Farm shares several fabulous detailed tutorials for growing sweet peas on her blog: www.floretflowers.com/growing-great-sweet-peas-part-2

The National Sweetpea Society offers a wealth of information, including tips for how to grow sweet peas (successfully!) in pots: www.sweetpeas.org.uk/hints-on-growing/growing-in-contianers (Yes, containers is misspelled in the web address.)

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MORE FROM THE PECKS

Marcia Westcott Peck is a landscape designer (mwplandscape.com or find her on Instagram at @pecklandscape), and Dennis Peck is a senior editor at The Oregonian/OregonLive.

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