From £7.25
Colour: red and white Stem: medium Height: 1.8 m Type: Heritage Scent: GoodFrom £7.25
Colour: ivory Stem: long Height: 1.8m Type: Spencer Scent: strong FlowerFrom £7.25
Colour: mid-red Stem: short Height: 1.5 m Type: Old Fashioned Heritage Scent: astonishing FloA sweet pea of enormous popularity with good reason, Gwendoline has enormous flowers that are white with a deep rose pink border that fades into the centre. Its undulating petals create a frilly effect, not least because there are so many of them. They are balanced by extra-long straight stems that are strong and enable this vigorous sweet pea to climb to over 2m if necessary making it one of the tallest in our range of sweet peas. As a Spencer sweet pea, she is fragrant without being overpowering.
Budding exhibitors at their local show should definitely invest in a Gwendoline to impress the bench. Her flowers fulfil all the technical requirements of the sweet pea expert while her verve and swagger are tremendously exciting. For ordinary mortals, a bunch of Gwendoline mixed with some sprigs of clary sage or blue flowered rosemary would be a delight on a bedside table. The pink and white colouring stands out against darker sweet peas like the excellent and recent cutting flower sweet pea, Magnificent Maroon or complements the shocking pink of Millennium.
Silas Cole was a gardener who worked for the Spencer family at Althorp in the early 20th Century. His passion was sweet peas, and it is down to him and his skill in breeding new varieties of sweet pea that the fashion moved from the small, fragrant and old-fashioned to these large, frilly and long stemmed varieties. The first Spencer Sweet Pea was Countess Spencer.
Awarded an RHS AGM in 1998.