The June Garden

“It is the month of June, the month of leaves and roses, when pleasant sights salute the eyes and pleasant scents the noses,” wrote American writer and editor Nathaniel Parker Willis. Certainly, the roses have had a good year and my garden is at its most fragrant at Midsummer as a result but the scent of June for me is and always has been the Sweet Pea. Not a flower you can find readily in the shops, due to its short shelf-life which makes it all the more special.

There was always a jam jar of sweet peas on the kitchen table in June when I was a girl, sweetly scented and in the most delightful shades of crimson, pink and purple. Picking them from the wigwam in the garden was an almost daily occurrence. The more you pick, the more blooms you have. Like a floral version of the magic porridge pot, without the sticky ending. My mother used to trade a bunch of Sweet Peas for a bag of tomatoes grown in a neighbour’s greenhouse. My job was to walk up the lane in the evening after school and perform the swap.