The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1895-04-05
PLANT EARLY AND PLANT DEEP.
Pointers for Those Who Love the Sweet
Smelling Sweet Peas.


Smelling Sweet Peas.
In the best-known missionary hymn
good old Bishop Heber tells us
The spicy breeZes
Blow soft DER Ceylon's isle,
but the sweetest OdOr that has been watt.
ed over to us from that far-off country is
not that of spice or balm, but of the
bright, winsome flower whose very name
bears tribute to its fragrance-the sweet
pea. This is one of the few flowers that
never goes out Of fashion. Our grand
mothers cherished it, and this generation
vote it the fashionable blossom. 1t is
beautiful enough for the queens palace,
common enough for the laborer' s cottage
NOT only are sweet peas handsome
garden flower, but, as all know, are fine
Tor cutting. Everyone does not know.
however, that the most effective way to
use peas is to arrange by themselves.
DO not use so many as to crowd into a
stiff. upright bunch, but drop few long
stemmed sprays into a slender vase. They
nodding and some looking at you, but 50
eXquisitely light, airy and graceful that
the addition of a single other flower will
spoil perfection.
Perhaps no other flower is so grateful
to the sick, for it's fragrance though
deep, is one, that never clogs. For the
convalescent's room, tie half dozen
sprays loosely together with narrow rib,
bon.
This lovely flower, easily grown as it
is, has one popularity. 1t simply must,
and will, be planted early-in fact, very
early, to do we'll, and if you intend next
summer to have long hedgerows of
sweet peas, and cut it's blossoms by the
hundreds, you must prepare now for it,
ordering the seeds and ready to pop into
the ground the very first day the latter
is in working condition after the winter
breakup occurs. February to March 1
for our Middle, Southern and South
western states is none too soon, and
April 1 to Is for our Northern states is
about the right time to plant.
Some enthusiasts would have us be-
ieve the raising of sweet peas is most
complicated affair. One authority naive
ly advises to prepare the flower bed by
manuring heavily in the fall and sprink-
ling wood ashes over it a few times in
the winter. Then spade and plant; as
soon as the little plants are three or
bone dust to the bed, and as soon as
buds show fertilize the earth with hand
fuls of nitrate of soda dug in a few
inches from the roots, and if this is not
enough, feed a little liquid manure once
or twice a week.
The sweet pea is a hearty eater, and
needs soil well enriched, but the fore
eoAAS peeSA lptAon SlilheS one dS very
strong diet for anything in the vege-
table world. All this fuss and precision
seems ludicrous enough, when we re-
member that busy mothers begin their
little girls first gardening lesson by
giving them package each of sweet
peas and morning glories, two things
that never fail to come up, and that
will do well with almost any treatment
that falls to their lot.
Extra care will not be thrown away on
sweet peas, for 1T means larger flowers
and more of them.
The best advice to give for their cul-
ture u.s., plant early, plant deep. keep
clean, keep seed-pOds off, mulch the
ground, and water copiously twice a
week if drOuth sets ill.,
Is, For sweet pea hedges they need to be
planted in double rows, separated ten
inches, and less than two inches apart
i'll the row. They always do better to
have early bushing. There is really moth
ing suits them better than brush five or
six feet high, stuck in the ground for them
to run Oh. They cover every twig and
bouGh i'll a short time, but Us the brush is
anything but slightly until this is accom-
plished, wire poultry netting stretched
tightly between supports is preferable. 1t
answers as we'll, and is never conspicu~
Gus.
AS this flower loves moisture and cool
ness, in hot localities. it does better if
planted where it can have Il few hours
shade each day. Do not give all shade,
for Il mod crate amour of sunshine is liked
by everything that has life.-Boston
Globe