In the garden the sweet-peas were really lovely. They looked, as Frank said, like so many beautiful butterflies on the wing; and they filled the air with delicious perfume.
“I think,” said Frank, “that our row of sweet-peas is by far the best thing in the garden.”
“That is quite true, Frank,” said his uncle, “but it is not so much the flowers we are going to study at present. The sweet-pea is certainly one of our finest flowering plants. It is also one of the most interesting. Can you tell me why we put stakes up for our sweet-pea plants to cling to?”
“Because they have long, slender stems—too slender and weak to grow up by themselves,” said Frank.
“Quite right, Frank. If the sweet-pea were a wild plant, where would it grow?”
“In the hedges,” said Tom.
“Right again,” said Uncle George. “If we grow the sweet-pea in the garden, we must imitate its surroundings in the wild state—we must give it a hedge of some kind to cling to, otherwise it would trail along the ground.”
“Then it would get choked among the other plants,” said Frank.
Rose Leaf. Vetch Leaf. Ash Leaf.