Pacific -- = Ce wvSweet Peas in California: A Fragrant but Fading Memory JUDITH M TAYLOR: Te year is a centennial of sorts: in 1907, sweet peas were first grown in California’s ‘Central Coast valleys on an agricultural scale: A visitor asked a Lompoc farmer, Robert Rennie, to grow them, The region’s rich soil and benign climate were ideal for growing the flowers; wind and fog from the Pacific Ocean. cooled the worst of the summer heat. Rennie planted sweet peas on half an acte of his ranch, which is now part of Lompoc’s town center. Within two years W Athee Burpee of Phila- delphia set up shop in Lompoc. Sweet peas were one of his principal crops. Some of his seed had been developed by the Reverend Lewis Routzahn in the late 1880s, working at the ranch of his father-in-law, TH McClure. Other seed growers followed soon after. Although Lompoc came to be known as the sweet pea “capital,” the flawers were also culti- vated on a lange scale in other California agri- cultural valleys. As far back as the 1890s, English growers were sending the seeds of their new cultivars to California to be “bulked up.” DM Ferry, from Detroit, had a ranch in Salinas, in Monterey County. CC Morse worked in San Francisco, but grew his seed in Santa Clara County. After 1930, the merged firm of Ferry-Morse Seeds occupied land near San Juan Bautista in San Benito County. In California the names of Ferry, Morse, and Burpee are the most prominent, but, at one time, many also knew of the Zvolanek family, William and Frank Cuthbertson (who did the crosses for Morse), and Denholm Seeds. ‘Only ten years after the California sweet pea epoch started, Morse’s son, Lester, published Field Notes on Sweet Peas (1917). The body of this booklet was a catalog of all the varieties and cultivars—English, American, and other nationalities—in existence prior to that date, It isa mine of information. Anyone driving through the coastal valleys of Central California before about 1980 would have seen field upon field of glorious color at the peak of the sweet pea season, The fields were active for almost a century but now have run their course. Fashions have changed. Gardeners switched from buying packets of seed to buying starter plants, and the cost of growing flowers. of any type in California became prohibitive. All of the flowers grown were labor-intensive—sweet peas in particular. Inaddition, land values escalated rapidly in the face of development pressures. Growing annuals for seed became mare cost effective in Central or South America. By the mid- 1980s, the valleys had changed. Sweet peas no longer lord it in Lompoc, but, at one time, many tons of seed were gathered from the fields there. Origins The cultivated sweet pea, which Linnaeus named Lathynes aforalus, is native to the Mediter- ranean region; this may explain its success in California. The modern sweet pea story began in Sicily in the late 1690s, Francisco Cupani, the gardener in a monastery at Misilmeni, sent a specimen of sweet peas to Caspar Commelin, a botanist in the Netherlands, and possibly to Roger Uvedale in England. That original plant was small, with dark blue, purple-hooded Sweet Peas in California / 5flowers and an intense fragrance. It is not known whether the specimen sent to London was wild or cultivated, but it was new to Cupani. Both the recipients recorded the gift, and, in London, a specimen was passed to Leonard Plukenet, Queen Mary's physician Philip Miller also grew it in London's Chelsea Physic Garden. Thirty years later, he wrote that another kind had become avail- able—a “pale red” one! Little is known about this period, particularly whether new varieties that were appearing were English sports or had come from Sicily. It is doubtful that anyone had been breeding th sntionally, In 1737, Mason's, a London seedsman, offered a sweet pea cultivar called ‘Painted Lady’; it was pink and white and distinctly fragrant. Could this have been Miller's “pale red”? Sweet Pea Breeding Expands After about one hundred and fifty years of ‘obscurity, the two known variants of sweet pea in England had increased in number to five. In the late 1870s, a sudden burst of glory erupted fueled by the award of a first class certificate to James Carter’s cultivar ‘Invincible Scarlet’ at an 1867 Royal Horticultural Society show. No sweet pea had ever won a prize before? Carter had begun breeding sweet peas as early as 1837; his firm offered six kinds: whit purple, black, red, striped, and ‘Painted Lady’ Thomas Laxton, who had established a fine reputation for breeding apples and edible peas, started ta work on sweet peas at about the same time as Carter, Laxton’s cultivars (‘Etna’, “Madame Camot’, and ‘Princess May’) were all extremely successful. People began to take notice Almost all the plants grown during the years that followed were selections of Lathryns odort- tus. This rather modest plant isan unlikely can- didate for fantasy and furor, but that is what happened for about forty years, between 1880 and 1920. After that a large number of the flowers were still grown for sale, but the market shifted away from a passion for sweet peas. Rice, The Stet Pea Book * Pletcher, The Story of the Royeal Horticultural Society a 196S fic Horticelture W Atlee Burpee i). and Henry Eckford (2), twe early sweet pes breeders, pictured in Burpoe's 1929 Ganden ual. Photograph courtesy Lama Valley amet Horticultural Society Henry Eckford, a professional gardener from Scotland, began breeding sweet peas in 1870, after a successful career breeding, pelargoni- ums, verbenas, and dablias for the Earl of Radnor. Perhaps he saw the wave of enthusi- asm for sweet peas as a way to enhance his career. In 1883, he won a first class certificate at the Royal Horticultural Society’s show for his “Bronze Prince’ sweet pea. Five years later, he ed his own nursery in the small Shrop- town of Wem, where his work further transformed the sweet pea. He developed 153 cultivars of which twenty-six remained in com- merce as of 1917, according to Lester Morse’s ist. Eckford developed the type known as “Grandiflora’, with larger flowers than previously seen and a broad range of colors, The showier ‘Spencer’ type was a sport from one of Eckford’s cultivars, ‘Prima Donna’, selected by Silas Cole, head gardener for the Earl of Spencer at Althorp. Although it lacked fragrance, the sport was so exquisite, with its wavy and frilly petals, that it quickly super- seded the ‘Grandiflora’ types. Curiously, an almost identical sport appeared in several other gardens simultaneously, but Cole’s work and the magical name of the Spencer family ensured that his introduction in 1901 received the lion’s share of attention. Oct Now /Dee 2000