Sweet Pea
Sweet Pea
Sweet Pea

Multi Buy

Size Guide
3.5
3.5" Perennial
3 or more $6.00 ea
Regularly: $6.99 ea

Sweet Pea

Scott's Nursery Ltd.

$3.50
Title

Introduce a lavish, scrambling cascade of classic old-world romance to your vertical garden spaces. This vigorous climber features clean blue-green foliage and winged stems that effortlessly scale structures, becoming completely draped in large, showy clusters of pea-like blossoms. The satiny, multi-toned flowers flutter like a cloud of butterflies in the summer breeze, creating an enchanting visual tapestry. It delivers an immediate, high-impact cottage charm that beautifully softens fences, brickwork, and large patio obelisks.
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Plant Details

Mature Size:

8' H x 4' W

Zone:

3-9

Watering:

Low to Medium

Type:

Herbaceous Perennial

Growth Rate:

Fast

Light:

Full Sun/Partial Shade

Plant Profile

Common Names:

Perennial Sweet Pea, Everlasting Pea, Broadleaf Everlasting Pea, Perennial Pea

Scientific Name:

Lathyrus latifolius

Type:

Climbing Thriller / Sprawler

Growth Details:

Mature Size: Climbs or scrambles 6 to 9 feet tall with a spreading width of 3 to 6 feet.

Growth Habit: Climbing, sprawling, and scrambling via leaf tendrils.

Form: Large, multi-stemmed, dense leafy vine.

Growth Rate: Fast; can push several feet of fresh growth in a single spring season.

Flowering: Bountiful clusters (racemes) holding 4 to 10 large, pea-like sweet pea blossoms.

Flowering Time: Early summer through early autumn (Continuous from June to September).

Flower Colour: A beautiful mix of rich rose-pink, deep magenta-red, soft lavender, and pure snow-white.

Environmental Needs:

Exposure: Full sun to partial shade.

Soil Preferences: Average, medium-moisture, well-draining garden loam or sandy soils.

Soil Tolerance: Highly resilient in poor fertility, heavy clay, rocky dirt, and sand; avoids only completely waterlogged, stagnant marsh conditions.

Watering: Low to moderate. Allow the top two inches of soil to dry out completely between watering intervals.

Container Role: Acts as a magnificent vertical climbing Thriller when trained up a central trellis, or a tumbling Spiller draped over large retaining walls.

Special Features:

Disease Resistances: Exceptional natural immunity to common garden pests, aphids, and foliar leaf spot diseases.

Native Species: No (Native to Europe, but widely naturalized across North America).

Fast Growing: Yes.

Attracts: Intensely alluring to butterflies, wild bumblebees, honeybees, and beneficial native insect pollinators.

Uses: Vertical fencing cover, privacy screening, cutting gardens (stems make fantastic trailing elements for fresh bouquets), and erosion-control groundcover.

Resistance: Highly deer-resistant and rabbit-resistant due to the tough, fibrous composition of its vines. Exceptional drought, heat, and urban pollution tolerance.
Care Guide

Ornamental & Landscape Value

Seasonal Interest:

Bloom Information: Highly showy, long-season flower clusters that emerge heavily in June and repeat reliably for months. (Note: Unlike annual sweet peas, the flowers of this perennial species are odorless).

Fall Colour: Foliage retains its clean blue-green color until a hard freeze turns the vines yellow, after which they die back completely to the root crown for winter.

Garden Value:

Ornamental Interest: Large, continuous racemes of wing-petaled blossoms supported by decorative, winged blue-green climbing vines.

Landscaping Uses: Perfect for scaling trellises, arbours, chain-link fences, and obelisks, scrambling over rustic stone piles, and naturalizing sunny slopes for erosion control.

Garden / Landscape Benefits: An exceptionally vigorous, zero-maintenance vertical filler that provides massive privacy coverage and non-stop colour in tough, dry, or wind-swept zones where delicate annual vines scorch.

Wildlife & Human Value:

Wildlife Value: Provides an essential, reliable, season-long nectar station for valuable native wild bees and migrating butterflies.

Human Value: An absolute problem-solver for landscaping; delivers massive vertical privacy screening and effortless curb appeal along ugly concrete walls or bare fences with zero ongoing maintenance.

Planting & Care Guide

Planting Considerations:

Best Time To Plant: Early spring as soon as the soil can be worked, or mid-autumn.

Spacing: Space individual plants 2 to 3 feet apart to allow the vigorous vines ample room to expand without choking neighbors.

Location Tips: Position directly at the base of a sturdy support structure (trellis, net, or fence). Select an open, highly exposed garden space; perfect for hot property lines or covering ugly structures.

Companion Plants: Pairs beautifully with scrambling Clematis, tall climbing Roses, white Shasta Daisies, and blue-toned Ornamental Grasses.

Care:

Light Requirements: Thrives best in absolute full sun to maximize its heavy summer flower production, but will comfortably tolerate very light afternoon shade.

Moisture Requirements: Requires moderate, regular watering while establishing; develops deep roots that make it highly self-sufficient and drought-tolerant once mature.

Maintenance, Fertilization: Cut the spent flower stems off promptly to prevent the plant from directing its energy into seed pods, which keeps the bloom cycle going strong into autumn. Cut the entire vine completely back to the ground line in late winter or early spring before fresh new shoots emerge. Apply a light application of balanced slow-release fertilizer in early spring; avoid high-nitrogen formulas, which stimulate massive leaf growth at the expense of blossoms.

Tolerances:

Punishing summer heat, extended drought, poor or rocky soils, heavy clay, strong winds, and browsing wildlife.

Tips For Success:

Thinning / Pinching: Not required, but young vines can be pinched early on to encourage a bushier, multi-stemmed base.

Support / Staking: Support is essential if growing vertically. Provide a trellis, mesh netting, or a wire grid so the plant's built-in tendrils have something to wrap around and pull themselves upward.

Special Needs: Unlike annual sweet peas, this perennial version features an exceptionally tough, woody root crown; ensure it is placed where it can remain permanently, as it dislikes being moved once established. Note: The seeds/pods are toxic if ingested.

Mulching: Apply a layer of organic mulch around the root zone to keep the soil cool during intense summer heat waves.

Winter Protection: None required; completely frost-hardy. Simply clear away all dead, dried vines in late winter to make room for clean new spring growth.
Fruit Profile