Although the flowers are beautiful, and can keep on being so into autumn, it’s the scent of sweet peas I love most.
It has unfathomable depths of gentle sensuousness, and is one of those delicate yet persuasive garden fragrances that’s more enticing and seductive than any man-made perfume.
Unfortunately, the choice of fragrant sweet peas is more limited than the scores of visually sumptuous varieties that are all but scent-free, which is a result of the obsessive breeding and showing of sweet peas in the last 100 years.
Monty Don reveals the scent of sweet peas is better than any man-made perfume. Pictured: A wigwam of fragrant ‘Matucana’ sweet peas
Joe Whelan, head gardener at Nymans in Handcross, West Sussex, shares his top tips for cultivating a showstopping summer border in your own back garden
G. gracilis and
G. elwesii.”
Hynes, who moved to Cherubeer 30 years ago, grew snowdrops in her previous Buckinghamshire garden having been given three named varieties by the late Gwladys Tonge, who was Hardy Plant Society chairman from 1987 to 1990. Those three originals, ‘Scharlockii’, ‘Viridapice’ and ‘Atkinsii’, moved to Devon and were soon joined by ‘Magnet’, ‘Colossus’ and ‘S. Arnott’.
“These big and bold varieties make large clumps without self-seeding,” Hynes tells me. “My garden relies on larger clumps grown in the ground to create a backbone of white.”
Her snowdrops are placed carefully to lead the eye, perhaps towards a fine witch hazel, or the fiery orange-red stems of a willow (