Purple and White Sweet Peas

How can anybody resist sweet peas? It is such an irresistible flower that has both beauty and scent. 

The botanical name is Lathyrus odoratus. Lathyrus is the Greek name for pea or pulse and odoratus means fragrant. So that would make it 'fragrant peas'!

Here are some adorable purple and white sweet peas in three vintage vases. 

The vases are all different but they all have something in common which is a blue and white floral pattern. One vase is low and round, one is tall and narrow and one is not a vase at all but a little sweet jug with a handle.

 The bunches of sweet peas that I bought at the local farmers market were all mixed colours. When I conditioned the flowers I separated them all into different bunches all of the same colour or as close as possible.

While I was conditioning the flowers I also found that the flowers were all different lengths. That often created problems when you are creating an arrangement. It is hard to support short stems in tall vases so using three vases in varying sizes was very helpful. I was able to accommodate both tall and short stems.

What you also will find with sweet peas are that they are quite fragile. They need gentle handling or a lot of both flowers and especially buds will fall off.

It is quite nice to place the the three vases together making a small group of flowers in a limited palette.      

Old vintage china vases often leak so be very careful on what surface you put them. It might not be obvious to start off with, you might not notice anything until the next day. But trust me on this one - as I have ruined many surfaces making the mistake of not putting something under the vase. I often use old vintage silver plated little trays that I have picked up very cheaply at the flea market.

Have a lovely fragrant day!

See you soon!

Xoxo Ingrid