Sweet Pea Parfume Edith Flanagan

A true coral, sitting between salmon and warm peach, which is a genuinely uncommon colour in sweet peas and the reason to grow this one. Large ruffled Spencer-type blooms on strong straight stems, with the traditional scent.

Coral is a particular colour and it wants thinking about. It sings alongside apricot, peach, soft orange and warm pink, and it looks slightly wrong next to the cool blue-pinks and lavenders that most sweet pea schemes are built from. Plan the row accordingly rather than mixing it in and hoping.

It climbs to about two metres and flowers June through October on a decent support. Sweet peas are hungry and thirsty, and this is the one place in a cottage garden where you should not stint on the muck; dig plenty of well-rotted manure or compost into the trench before planting.

Pick every flower as it opens. Let one pod form and the plant treats the year as done.