Sweet Peas
Before. 
And after.
This is Gwendoline, who will be growing up over Anemone Rose.* The rose is a bit tender and she’s in much too small a pot so I’ve been afraid this winter would take her out, but there are definitely leaves starting to come so we live in innocent wide-eyed hope–and if Gwendoline gets too exuberant there are bamboos (and wires on the wall) to take the overflow. I want to say the rose produces enormous single flowers but I think they aren’t that huge in actual size, only in the impression they make: they’re a silvery pink, paler on the outside, and they glow astonishingly in sunlight. She’s also very early, so she’ll probably be over with by the time the pea starts flowering, but she throws out a few late ones in a good year, so we live in more (innocent, etc) hope since I’d love to get a photo of a pink and white sweet pea with a silvery pink single rose.
And before anyone hits the button to scold me for using too many slug pellets: wrong. Hampshire slugs are voracious, and they zero in on little tender newly planted things the way mice can find every bulb in your garden if vigorous diversionary tactics are not imposed.** There’s a pulsatilla I am having to re-de-slug every night. She must be sitting on the Main Slug Interchange: usually they get bored after a few nights of watching their colleagues going, Hey! This blue stuff is great! You should try–unnnnnngh.***
This is Prima Donna, set to grow over Empress Josephine†. (Yes, of course you can see the little dab of fledgling sweet peas. Peer harder among the daffodil leaves.) The Empress was planted a few years ago in honour of the death–or rather the life–of an old friend whose nickname was the Queen. I already didn’t have room in this garden for another whacking great shrub rose . . . so she’s in a pot. This is a bit like putting Godzilla in a rowboat but she’s having a good time so far. The Gallicas often want to trail, more or less gracefully, so she’s got a climbing frame and I will encourage her to throw a few careless tendrils over the wall of the pot as well. Pink Prima Donna should mix in nicely and since the Empress is a midsummer-only rose (but worth every hour) it’ll be nice to have smelly pink flowers in that pot after she’s over.
This is The Doctor. One of my great gardening successes last year was lavender sweet peas growing through my purple clematis integrifolia††, which cascades (with some help from me and my trusty green twine) up and over the stair railing at my front door, and pours down on passers-by. (Did I post a photo of this?) It’s usually a mistake to try and repeat glorious successes . . . but it’s also extremely hard to resist trying.
This is Dancing Queen and Heathcliff.††† The clematis on the right in the next planter is a big platter-shaped pale-indigo-blue one‡, the rose is mid pink, and the chrysanthemum, which is that pullulating mass of green leaves just getting going in the front of the photo, is white. Blue and white sweet peas should do rather well (slightly depending on the shade of blue).
And this is Scarlett. This is the tableau that amuses me the most in prospect, and I hope it’s not one of those black-wallpaper-with-fuzzy-pink-mules-what-were-they-THINKING?? numbers when it’s all riotously out. The little tree in the pot is a smoke bush‡‡, so when she leafs out she’ll be a deep sort of ruby purple. And again, and in this case possibly rather painfully, depending on the shade of scarlet, Scarlett should look rather good winding round and through. Unless she looks (a) stupid or (b) dreadful. And if she gets really excited–and the scarlet isn’t the wrong shade of scarlet–the rose in the planter you can just see the edge of at the right of the photo is Louis XIV who is deepest dark red herself, and Scarlett can go plait herself there too. And it’s pleasant to live in hope. It’s like believing in fairy tales. It’s one of the things gardening is for. And it’s so good for your character when your hopes are dashed.
This is also a good example of my Multiplying Pot Mania. That gap behind the smoke bush has been really bothering me. And the roots of the smoke bush are too near the surface to plant anything in the pot with her, but naked earth is so boring.
And if anything really terrifyingly and horrifyingly does not harmonise with her hostess, I can always cut all the flowers and bring them indoors: this is, after all, the Fragrant Sweet Pea Collection. ‡‡‡ But as you know I have a somewhat unusual sense of harmony. Stay, ahem, tuned.
* * *
* There are no good photos of her on the web and of course I have failed to think ahead so while I have photos of her myself of course I have no idea where they are. This is the closest http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/showrose.asp?showr=1223 but it’s not very impressive.
** And speaking of keeping the mice hungry, putting netting down over the bulbs and then about an inch of compost over the netting worked like a charm this year: the mice may have discovered grappling gear by next winter, of course. You do have to pull the netting off hastily (and delicately) as soon as you see the little pointed green tips breaking through and chances are the surface of your bulb beds will look a bit like the aftermath of an earthquake, but it works, and once the leaves are out you can’t see the ground, and once the flowers are out you won’t care.
*** I long for a hedgehog of my very own. But at least these are organic slug pellets. And I still don’t let the hellhounds anywhere near them.
† http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/showrose.asp?showr=322 This isn’t very good either. Sigh. And I have my own photos of her. Sigh.
†† Or integrefolia–don’t blame me, it gets spelled both ways–but neither of them has anything remotely resembling a good photo available on the web that I can find. Imagine a medium-plum-purple small nodding bell flower with the petal tips turned up.
††† There’s also a Cathy. I don’t know why we didn’t get Cathy.
‡Yes, I know, indigo is dark. But it’s that quality. Only pale.
‡‡ This does at least give you some idea: http://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/shrubs/classid.1010/ but in the flesh she’s a deep, rich, gorgeous colour rather than being dark and sad as she looks here
‡‡‡ But what else are sweet peas for? If they ever invent a smell-free sweet pea I don’t want to know.
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