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Sweet Peas and Other Blooms

21 replies

MitziK · 21/08/2020 19:18

Got in from work (absolutely knackered), dropped the shopping bags, handbag, kicked off shoes and collpased on the sofa after opening the bay window and switching on the fan this evening. All well and good - BUT -

I can smell Sweet Peas. The proper, spicy, old fashioned, scrambling up a net, wonderful, beautiful, as-grown-by-my-grandfather-for-my-grandmother-every-year (along with Forget-Me-Nots along the garden path because they matched her eyes) Sweet Peas.

I know every garden round here. I'm a nosy bastard like that. Front and back, as it's a right jumble of Victorian, Georgian and modern all upended and scattered around, most of which I can see from one or another of my windows. Now, I do have a good sense of smell and could tell you exactly whose garden had which Roses from about 259 yards away and whether the rape has been harvested yet five miles away (yup). But there haven't been ANY Sweet Peas. Nobody else is into the Cottage Garden thing round here. Hell, most people round here aren't into anything more than fitting the multiple huge wheelie bins somewhere whilst still being able to get to the front door.

It's beautiful - I've not smelled anything like it since the year before my Grandmother died. No perfume can match this scent and you can't get them from the supermarket because they have pretty much Zero longevity (or my house would be full of the buggers). The current selection round the corner is Lilies (lovely, but Death for cats, so I can't have them), Sunflowers (look great, but that's about it), Gladioli (but they're luminously disappointing in a vase) and assorted scentless things.

Maybe I'm finally cracking up?

Anyhow, nobody really talks about flowers much. So I'm going to now.

What flowers take you somewhere else the instant you smell or see them?

OP posts:
elephantoverthehill · 21/08/2020 19:26

I have sweetpeas at the allotment and in the garden. You have to keep picking them or they stop producing so gloat I have fresh sweet peas in the house every other day. My plot neighbour always comments on the fragrance, I give him bunches to give to his daughter.

MitziK · 21/08/2020 21:10

I'm not sure whether I like you or hate you.

I'm jealous, either way.

OP posts:
MaryBerrysChutney · 21/08/2020 21:15

I have sweet peas as well. They grow by my kitchen window and I love the fragrance! Roses remind me of my Nan and Jasmine reminds me of my holiday in Sri Lanka. The warm nights, beach and the fragrance of jasmine!

chloworm · 21/08/2020 21:18

Tulips! They don't have much of a scent unless you get up close, but my word when I smell them I'm back at my first home, lying on the green grass doing my homework. Yellow and red. Under the silver birch.

Butterer · 21/08/2020 21:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

dementedma · 21/08/2020 21:33

Adore sweet peas, and the honeysuckle dripping with scent in the evening is just delicious. I stand there inhaling it and thinking of every summer I have ever k own.

Sharpkat · 21/08/2020 21:36

Another sweet pea person who cuts them daily and has a fresh vase every day. Remind me of my grandmother and she passed away 21 years ago.

They have taken a battering from the wind today but I can already spy tomorrow's flowers 😀

Wholeholes · 21/08/2020 21:38

I have finally grown sweet peas this year. I love the smell and the colours. I also have heaps of lavender and have bunches of it in the house. Mmm.

Honeysuckle is a delicious smell-reminds me of my walk to play school when I was little

It’s tomatoes which take me back to my
granddad’s allotment though.

MinesAPintOfTea · 21/08/2020 21:38

Love sweet peas. Why does your garden not have a container full of them? They are super easy to grow then it's cut flowers in the house from June to September

MinesAPintOfTea · 21/08/2020 21:40

But honeysuckle is also to me the flower of summer. Remember living in London and changing my route to university so I went past a lovely wall covered in it and thought of my parents' house

StillSmallVoice · 21/08/2020 21:45

Sweetpeas take me right back to childhood when we would spend Sunday afternoons at my aunt's. Likewise sprinklers on the tomato plants.

Also Chanel No 5. Mum used to put it on when she was all glammed up for an evening out. That one in particular makes me feel safe, quite apart from the gorgeousness of the scent.

CatBatCat · 21/08/2020 22:08

Went for a walk round Chatworth the other week and fell in love with their kitchen garden where there was a long wall of sweet peas. You could smell the blooms everywhere. Beautiful

YorkieTheRabbit · 21/08/2020 22:15

I grow sweet peas every year, absolutely love them! We’ve got three honeysuckle, takes me back to a happy time in my childhood Smile Lots of roses, think we’ve about forty , lots of lavender and night scented stocks. I like fragrance in a garden Smile

Butterer · 21/08/2020 22:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

1940s · 21/08/2020 22:24

Erm... anyone else used to eat copious amount of honeysuckle as a kid?!

UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername · 21/08/2020 22:24

Wallflowers can stop me in my tracks and bring me straight back to my childhood.

MitziK · 21/08/2020 22:25

@MinesAPintOfTea

Love sweet peas. Why does your garden not have a container full of them? They are super easy to grow then it's cut flowers in the house from June to September
Couldn't get any seeds or organic compost delivered when The Plague hit (I'd been holding out for payday, only for all garden cetnres/nurseries in the area to have a cut off delivery distance of 0.75miles from my house).

Made do with actual peas, beans, courgettes, potatoes, blackberries, raspberries, cherries, cabbage and lettuces out back to go with the Pyracantha (anti intruder and bird friendly)out back (very, very small garden) and Ivy/Lavender/Rosemary out front in the 4 inch wide bed against the house. Oh, and the Honeysuckle and Roses (except the one the bastard neighbour weedkillered because the petals blew onto his astroturf).

I've only got myself to blame, I know.

I'm still jealous.

OP posts:
PrivateSpidey · 21/08/2020 22:25

Lovely thread OP. My mum grows a lot of sweet peas, love them.

I've got some stocks in this year and they smell gorgeous. I grew them from seed, sown in the early days of lockdown. The seeds were only 50p from Wilko, total bargain!

I've just planted some Hollyhock seeds for next summer (don't think they are known for their scent though?) I want a Miss Marple's cottage garden vibe going on (even though it's probably a lot of work).

deste · 21/08/2020 22:36

I picked sweet peas this morning but had to move them into another room as I couldn’t stand the smell. Sorry.

onlinelinda · 21/08/2020 23:18

Night scented stick, matthiola incana. Absolute heaven under a window. Boring in daytime. Plant it every month March -June.

onlinelinda · 21/08/2020 23:22

Matthiola longipetala, it turns out.

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