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Sweet peas are one of the glories of the garden. Relatively easy to grow and loved by everybody for their heady scent and delicate colouring, it’s hard to believe that the vast range of varieties we grow all descend from a plant in a monastery garden in Sicily, collected and cultivated by a Franciscan monk, Francisco Cupani at the end of the 17thc. It was Cupani who sent seeds to botanic friends and correspondents all over Europe including Robert Uvedale, an Enfield schoolmaster in 1699 or 1700 who is responsible for introducing this garden favourite to Britain.
That original plant, now known as Cupani, was small, with dark blue, purple-hooded flowers and an intense fragrance, but very little hybridizing was done until Shropshire gardener Henry Eckford cross-bred and developed the modern form of the sweet pea, and turned it from a rather insignificant if sweetly scented flower into one of floral sensations of the late 19thc.
