Cultivation
Sweet peas have been cultivated since the 17th century and a vast number of cultivars is commercially available. They are grown for their flower colour (usually in pastel shades of blue, pink, purple and white, including bi-colours), and for their intense unique fragrance. They are grown by gardeners for private consumption or for exhibition, and in the floristry trade. The large, pea-shaped seeds are sown in cold frames in Spring or Autumn. The seeds benefit from pre-soaking or chipping with a sharp blade. The plants are also available later in the season, as young plants or plugs. They are grown up canes, with the new shoots being regularly pinched out to promote a bushy habit and higher flower yields. Plants typically reach heights of 1-2m, with the flowers appearing in midsummer and continuing for many weeks if regularly deadheaded.
Over 50 cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. See List of AGM sweet peas
Read more about this topic: Sweet Pea
Famous quotes containing the word cultivation:
“We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we’re barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The cultivation of literary pursuits forms the basis of all sciences, and in their perfection consist the reputation and prosperity of kingdoms.”
—Marquês De Pombal (1699–1782)