sweet peas are my favorite flower
Photos of sweetpeas and sea glass at my old place in Ventura, 2008
Sweet peas are my favorite flower, not just because of their delectable scent, tousled petals and twirly vines. Every time I smell them, I remember. My mom loved to grow them. Her mom loved to grow them, as did her mother, and grandmother, too. The smell of sweet peas is so powerful, I can conjure any number of images of mom or Grandma, bent over their vines, gardening away. While geraniums are the flowers I most associate with the beach house, sweet peas are what I associate with the people.
The pelican in the picture is filled with beach glass from our beach house, where the sweet peas bloomed for so many years. When I was engaged for a bit in the 1990s, my mom planted a ton of white sweet peas in front of the house in preparation for my bridal bouquet. When the engagement ended, I was kind of sad (and more than a little relieved) — but I was really really sad about that bouquet never becoming a reality. My family did enjoy the flowers anyway, of course, but oh man, that was going to be one fabulous arrangement.
And why shouldn’t you love sweetpeas, sweetpea?