Sweet Pea :

The sweet pea, which signifies “lasting pleasure,” was first brought to England from Sicily in 1699, and the English have had a love affair with this delicate flower ever since. Its sweet scent and ruffled blossoms grown on a spindly green vine make this an old – fashioned favorite. Its many colors range from white to intense pinks and purples, and its scent can be strong and sweet .
Whoever wrote the maxim that you can never be too rich or too thin probable didn’t have the sweet pea in mind, but the rule certainly applies. Dubbed “delicate pleasures” by the Victorians and praised by Keats (“Here are sweet peas, on tip – toe for a flight…”), these blossoms offer both intensely rich colors and ultra – skinny stems, to say nothing of a mesmerizing fragrance.

“Delicate” is something of a misnomer. While the pose of the sweet pea is genteel, it’s hardy specimen cultivated into more than a thousand varieties and derived from the same family of the climbing vines that produces peas. It can survive frosts, and if it snows, expect its shiny green head to pop through – how do you think the snow pea got its name?

The flower’s colors start out at fairly basic, though comely, creamy white, but from there it’s like jumping into a box of Lucky Charms: candy orange, peppermint pink, deep purple, ripples of lavender, navy blue.

Gather those colors carefully, however. Count us among the designers with strong opinions when it comes to mixing and matching colors. The purple sweet pea is wonderful, and the pink sweet pea is very nice, but you’ll never find us putting them together. As far as we’re concerned, pink and purple should get no closer than where you find them in the dictionary. And, if we may, on more color no – no in case you’re thinking of pairing yellow and pale pink : your bouquet should evoke joy and wonder but never a handful of bathroom tissue.

Non – vining varieties of sweet peas usually have two to three blossoms per each incredibly lean stem. The upside of that slender silhouette is that you can mass these flowers together by the dozens and still have room for more.