I have just had the honour of being asked to name a sweet pea. To get it wrong would be rather like giving an unsuitable name to a child. (I have never understood how parents can decide on a name for their baby before looking into their newborn’s eyes.) I wanted the flower and its name to be compatible, as well as appropriate and flattering.
I’ve never met a sweet pea I didn’t like. True, I would never grow those of solid bright-scarlet because I don’t have that colour in my garden, or indeed my home, but all sweet peas carry a gentleness and fragility to them that I find adorable. Their petals always make me think of butterflies’ wings. Their perfume is, to me, the essence of an early summer garden, just as that of wallflowers is synonymous with late spring. It is a perfume I cannot get enough of.
The standards and wings of the new cultivar that Phil Johnson of English Sweet Peas has bred are a cool paper white, each one striped with a pale strawberry-pink. They look as if an artist’s brush has swept past a white sweet pea, leaving a soft-pink blush in its wake. There is something of the geisha about them.
More than anything, the colouring reminded me of that blissful, midsummer moment when I am in the kitchen, doors open to the garden, stirring crushed, ripe strawberries into a bowl of softly whipped cream to make a summer fruit fool. A luxurious dessert, light and creamy, with a bright flash of pink fruit. I always think a fool is at its most beguiling mid-stir, when the juices of the crushed fruit are still marbling the cream, leaving streaks of colour in their wake. Mix too much and you will have a pale-pink pudding. If you know when to stop, you have something ethereally beautiful, delicate and charming.
I thoroughly enjoyed choosing a name for this flower. The naming of genera, species and cultivars has always intrigued me. Occasionally an entire genus is named after a botanist or plant collector. Begonia, named after naturalist Michel Bégon; Dahlia, for botanist Anders Dahl; or Fuchsia, named for the Bavarian botanist, Leonhart Fuchs. The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, was first sent to England by Francesco Cupani, the Franciscan monk, in 1696. My new cultivar shares the wonderful perfume of the ‘Cupani’ sweet pea, whose rich mauve and maroon flowers and deep perfume keep its place as a favourite to this day.
It reminds me of that blissful, midsummer moment of stirring crushed strawberries into a bowl of cream
Cultivar names can be more fanciful, and none more so than those of the rose. They are often given the name of a member of royalty or a well-known celebrity – my own small rose border has everyone from Dame Judi Dench and James Galway to Lady Emma Hamilton in it. Together with Roald Dahl and Gertrude Jekyll, my collection sounds like the guest list of a particularly eclectic garden party. I hope they enjoy each other’s company.
My own surname is associated with a rose, Slater’s Crimson (Rosa chinensis ‘Semperflorens’), possibly the oldest documented garden rose. DNA analysis has shown it to be a parent of R. chinensis ‘Old Blush’, a variety to be seen in early Chinese paintings. Whether this rose is even remotely connected to me I have no idea, though I’ve always loved the notion that it might be.
Famous names abound in the plant world. Queen Anne turns up as Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), although no one seems to know which of the Queen Annes it is in honour of. St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) is named after St John the Baptist. There are more royally monikered roses than you could shake a tiara at, from Rosa Princess Anne (= ‘Auskitchen’) and Princess Alexandra of Kent (= ‘Ausmerchant’) to ‘The Queen Elizabeth’. Industrialists (‘Abraham Darby’), aviators (‘Amelia Earhart’) and the 19th-century dressmaker ‘Madame Caroline Testout’ all get a look in, along with television presenters such as Alan Titchmarsh (= ‘Ausjive’), and this year a footballer – Sir David Beckham (= ‘Ausa34b16’) – has a rose named after him.
I am watching my own sweet peas like a hawk this year, as they wind their way up a tangle of hazel twigs. I am marrying the crushed-berries character of the newly named ‘Fruit Fool’ with the elegant ‘Mrs Collier’, ‘High Society’ and ‘Almost Black’. I have visions of the whites, deep purples and pink together in a vase, but much depends on my vigilance in keeping the dreaded slugs at bay.
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Plant names, whether botanically accurate or simply common names that have stood the test of time, are to be treasured and enjoyed. As an amateur gardener I will probably always use the common names over the correct botanical titles, partly because they are often so descriptive. I mean, when did you last hear anyone say: “Oh look, the Lamprocapnos spectabilis is out”?
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Common names are often a delight. They conjure up images that stay with us for ever. Could there be anything quite so poetic as calling a tiny white bead hanging from a thin green stem ‘a snowdrop’? Or could anything be as accurately descriptive as the epithet ‘bluebell’? Christmas rose and fairy moss, lady’s mantle and lamb’s ear, honeysuckle and bleeding heart. All bring to mind something magical. There is a touch of fairy-story to them, just as poison ivy and deadly nightshade carry notes of mystery and darkness.
While I appreciate the need for botanical plant names (and do indeed refer to foxgloves as Digitalis), I also remain the sort of gardener who finds delight in the imagery of a fox trotting by in his mauve and white mittens.
- Lathyrus odoratus ‘Fruit Fool’, bred by English Sweet Peas, was launched at the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show with 10 per cent of all sales donated to the RSPCA. englishsweetpeas.co.uk
