Sweet Peas - The Sweet Smell of a Mammoth

The sweet peas are coming to an end.
The stems are getting shorter and there is more than a little late infestation of green fly, but they have been magnificent and as they say “owe us nothing".
I have always loved sweet peas. They have been an annual highlight and the first few blooms are always eagerly awaited and their scent inhaled with a pleasure and nostalgia.

Mammoth Mixed

We are the only nursery I know that sells sweet pea plants in individual sweet pea tubes and in individual colours.
Until this year we have always planted the left overs. By that I mean that after we have sold some thousands of sweet peas, the ones left are those that have lost a label, taken a knock or are an unfashionable colour, and so, in they go, supported by a few hazel branches.

This year Donald experimented with a variety bred especially for poly-tunnels and they were planted in an orderly row and wired up. As reported, they have been wonderful.
The variety is called Mammoth - not a pretty name. The plants are vigorous, the stems have been long and straight, the flowers have been huge and have kept coming, but the most wonderful thing has been the wonderful, pleasurable fragrance. The scent of these sweet peas meets you at the door and is a rare pleasure as you cut the blooms.
In water the flowers have lasted almost a week, a long spell for sweet peas , and we have had a big enough crop that we have been sending bunches to market. We will certainly be growing them again next year.

Honeymoon

Mammoth is, as I said, especially bred for indoor, poly tunnel cropping. Outdoors we are still recommending the old Spencer varieties as they are the hardiest and have the best colour range that we know.
My favourites have to be the lovely white Honeymoon, and the deep crimson Winston Churchill.
In addition to the Spencers we grow Old Spice mixed, smaller flowers, with a heady, almost tropical, spicy scent. We also grow a single old variety called Matucana. This has deep purple and red flushed flowers and the most remarkable scent of all.


Winston Churchill

Most folks in the north of the United Kingdom plant their Sweet Pea seed early spring. We often get them in late February/ March ..... but you can plant in autumn on the hope of an early start and early flowers. Always keep your seedlings up and away from mice; they seem to smell them a thousand yards away. Early spring means the day ends with a patrol of many mouse traps.

The seedlings are very hardy and do not need cosseting. However this past spring was so cold in April that it certainly put them back and they were looking very pinched for a while, before they grew away strongly.

Matacuna

Sweet peas love a rich soil and if you are organised enough to know where you will be planting them next year, then this an excellent time to dig a trench and fill it with as much homemade compost and animal manure as you can get your hands on. They will love the rich diet and will reward you with months of undiluted pleasure.

Following my nose

Rain again…in fact a ferocious storm, with sheet lightening.
Further south from here the storms were terrible and many people were flooded. Here it was short and very sharp.  
Afterwards it was warm. The air was clear and is almost fizzing, washed clean.
What did people say - you could smell the ozone? 

That combination of warmth and rain liberated some of the earth smells and the newly mounded earth on the potatoes, felt warm and smelt spicy and earthy.
Walking on up the steps I can smell apples, it is the green sharp apple smell of Rosa rubiginosa, Sweet Briar or Elgantine. This rose has single pink flowers in June/July…and is pretty enough, but you should grow it for the wonderful scent of apples that follows a summer shower.

Close by is Madame Isaac Pereire, a full blown dark, dusky pink rose with the perfect old rose scent; and she is so generous with that scent that she perfumes the air around the blooms; intoxicating.

On through the woodland paths and the deciduous azaleas are still scenting the damp warm air, and as I go further up the steps there is that honey scented area. I have never been able to pin down exactly where that scent comes from, but it perfumes the air almost all year….maybe I'll stop looking and just accept it.
Around and on to the open hill side and the birch trees have that glorious peppery tang.
And this week I have been putting pots of night scented stock into corners near to where we will walk in the evenings. In 2 weeks I hope to smell their wonderful sweet-shop scent of the tiny stock flowers when I drive in around dark. Aahhhh.

My top five favourite garden smells: (for today)
1. Balsam poplar
2. Lily of the valley
3. Honeysuckle
4. Old roses
5. Dianthus Mrs Sinkins (And a sneeky number six -  Sweet peas - of course)

M Davidson

Azaleas - A memory of colour

My midyear resolution is to look through some of the old photographic slides we took during our first sojourn in New Zealand. Well, that is if I can be bothered schlepping through the attic manage to find the time, It may have to wait until Cat returns here for the next rugby world cup!

What I would be looking for, is a fabulous garden, I don’t even remember exactly where it was/is, but somewhere in the South Island of New Zealand there was a wall of deciduous azaleas in full colour, backing onto a still pond. It took my breath away.

Azalea Luteum (Yellow) and Azalea Persil (White)

I think many gardeners have moments like that and these sights burn themselves onto our retinas and we find ourselves trying to replicate them over and over. Of course there are many gardens in Scotland that have Azaleas, and there are places on the far west, Arisaig and elsewhere that have Azalea lutea naturalising and thriving, but that wall of colour was the moment for me.

Azalea Golden Eagle

It was orange, red and yellow and that is what I have tried to replicate at Abriachan.
We have Azalea Gibraltar and Golden Eagle doing very well , and they are large enough now to make real impact.

Azalea Gibraltar

When I don’t know what varieties to choose to plant, I go to the Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs and look for ones with First Class Certificates or the newer Award of Garden Merit. And they have never let me down.
From there I planted Persil, a lovely white with yellow markings and my very favourite - Irene Koster. She is a soft pink with yellow makings, but best of all, her fragrance is wonderful. I have planted several amongst the upper woodland section of garden and she is sublime this year.

Azalea Persil

Azalea Irene Koster

Azaleas are one of those wonderful plants that lift their fragrance into the air, so if you have one or more, visit them in the evening or even in the middle of the day when any warmth will intensify the scented air. 
Just lovely, I must plant many more, and that's a resolution I will definitely keep.

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