Stanwood’s ‘Sweet Pea Queen’ shares her floral passion and pro tips

FOR GENERATIONS, delicate flowers and an evocative fragrance have earned sweet peas a place in the hearts of gardeners and nongardeners alike.

Marryn Mathis is the owner of The Farmhouse Flower Farm in Stanwood, which she tends along with her husband and sons. Years of cultivating the flowering vines and offering popular on-farm workshops have earned Mathis the title of “Sweet Pea Queen.”

Now in her beautiful new book, “Sweet Pea School: Growing and Arranging the Garden’s Most Romantic Blooms” (Chronicle, 2025), the newly minted author shares her experience growing the cherished annual.

Briefly: In addition to their beauty and fragrance, Mathis contends that sweet peas are easy to grow and make a great cut flower. The blossoms are pollinator friendly, and with proper care will bloom throughout summer. Training vines on a support requires little space in the garden, and if you allow the flowers to ripen and set seed, you can collect stock for next year at the end of the growing season.

But the devoted flower farmer has so much more to say.

“Sweet Pea School” opens with a look into the history and provenance of sweet peas, beginning with the familiar story of a 17th-century botanist monk who discovered the vines growing on a scrubby hillside in Sicily. Mathis writes, “Those early wildflowers were untamed, bright, small and quite short, much different from the sweet peas we know and love today.”

Beguiled by the delicate flowers, later breeders grew the genus into a “staple in today’s gardens, with regal blooms fit for a queen.” Mathis briefly profiles 19th-century horticulturist Henry Eckford, known as the “father of the sweet pea,” as well as the work of contemporary breeders Roger Parsons, Keith Hammett and Phil Johnson.

In chapter two, Mathis looks at the characteristics of five classes of sweet peas. Old-fashioned or antique varieties, those introduced before 1914, carry the small flowers and short stems of that first wildling. Spencer varieties, first introduced in 1901, are prized for their long stems and frilly blossoms.

Still being bred today, grandiflora and modern grandiflora varieties are available in an expansive array of colors — just about every hue but yellow — with smaller blooms and the intense fragrance of old-fashioned varieties. Semi-grandifloras combine the best of old-fashioned and Spencer varieties, with highly scented slightly ruffled blooms on long stems. Early multiflora varieties require fewer hours of daylight to induce blooming and are a solution for gardeners growing in regions with hot summers — sweet peas thrive in cool weather.

Among her tips and tricks to boost success, Mathis offers detailed information about sowing and growing sweet peas, including her advice to locate the vines where they will get afternoon shade, extending the bloom season. Rich soil, plenty of compost and regular water promote strong plants and vigorous growth that resists pests and disease.

Whether you’re growing sweet peas to produce cut flowers or integrating the vines with your other garden plants, the author outlines training methods and techniques to promote good branching and maximize stem length.

A short chapter on creating glorious arrangements with sweet peas will appeal to floral designers, but my heart began beating a little faster as I read through an overview of popular varieties organized by color — ‘King’s Ransom’, I’m coming for you.

“Sweet Pea School” reveals the passion and knowledge of an experienced flower farmer who respectfully acknowledges the work of plantspeople who have grown this beloved bloom into the flowering darling of yesterday, today and tomorrow.