PlantFiles: Sweet Pea
Lathyrus odoratus 'Cupani'

Had a good experience with Cupani last year. I found they held up well in the Tennessee heat, flowering for 6-8 weeks, before giving up by the 4th of July. Will try planting earlier this year. Originally from Sicily. Good heat tolerance. Classic sweet pea fragrance. A small bouquet will scent a room.

We grew this for the first time this year and yesterday it opened it's first bloom and is loaded up with buds! I love the fact that this is THE ORIGINAL NON-HYBRID Sweet Pea. You have got to love heirlooms!

This ancient sweetpea is literally the grandaddy of them all, as all other sweetpeas have descended from it. It was grown in Middlesex England in 1699 by a teacher named Dr. Uvedale. He obtained the seeds from a Sicilian monk named Franciscus Cupani, its namesake. Unlike a lot of the odorless moderns, this one has a great strong scent. Annual, 5' tall

The original sweet pea, a very old strain. Glowing purple-rose blooms, on the small side compared to more modern sweet peas, but generously produced and very fragrant. A sweet, neat appearance rather than billowy or butterflylike. Very pretty sweet pea.

Germination is excellent and the plants are resilient and just keep on blooming -- although pretty neglected, mine produced successive flushes till late September when I stopped deadheading. Each flush had slightly smaller flowers and shorter stems than the one before.

I don't think I had any success with self-sowing, maybe this year.