Many types of snow pea varieties bear bicoloured flowers, typically in combinations of pink, lilac, and burgundy. This information comes from gardening expert Helen Chesnut, who recently addressed a reader's question about these beautiful blooms.
Reader Inquiry About Snow Pea Flowers
A reader wrote in describing trellised pea vines in a friend's garden that displayed striking dark burgundy and lilac flowers. The reader asked if there is a snow pea variety with similarly coloured blooms.
Expert Response: Varieties with Bicoloured Blooms
Helen Chesnut confirmed that numerous snow pea varieties produce bicoloured flowers. This year, she is growing two such varieties: Swiss Giant from Salt Spring Seeds and Purple Mist from West Coast Seeds.
Purple Mist is a multi-purpose Dutch heirloom. Its young pods can be harvested as snow peas, or left to mature for shelling peas. Alternatively, the pods can dry on the vine for use as soup peas.
Swiss Giant produces large, sweet snow peas ideal for snacks, salads, and stir-fries. If left to mature, the pods yield dried peas speckled with green, mauve, and blue, perfect for soups, stews, and casseroles.
Planting Tips for Snow Peas
Chesnut recommends seeding snow peas twice: in March or early April, and again in July for a fall harvest.
Wood Anemones: Double-Flowered Forms
Another reader expressed fondness for wood anemones and inquired about double-flowered forms. Chesnut recalled seeing double-flowered white wood anemones in a neighbour's garden years ago and later received a few plants.
The variety is likely Anemone nemorosa 'Vestal', available from Fraser's Thimble Farms on Salt Spring Island. These woodland groundcovers emerge in early spring with deeply cut leaves, bloom, and then die back quickly. Cool spring weather extends their flowering period.
Wood anemones thrive under rhododendrons. Chesnut's original double-flowered white ones form a circle around a tree stump supporting a climbing hydrangea and fill a nearby bed with small spirea shrubs.
