Are Sweet Peas as invasive as Morning Glories? I love the color of Morning Glories, but am afraid they will take over my garden as I've read in some horror stories. How comparible are Sweet Peas? Morning Glories come back year after year, are Sweet Peas the same and just as fast-growing? Thanx.
No, except for being a climber (unless you buy dwarf cultivars) Lathyrus odoratus is not like Calystegia sylvatica at all. It's not even perennial. L. latifolius, on the other hand, is perennial and comparatively large growing, does grow wild here. But I think few would consider it nearly as objectionable as the Calystegia.
Sorry Ron, I have no idea what all those names are... yet. I'm sure I'll get there eventually. Both of these are climbers, aren't they? And which one of the two is a perennial? I'm guessing Morning Glories by the stories I've heard about them invading gardens and killing plants.
Morning glory could be a nightmare that you'll never get rid of, that is assuming that your talking about the white ones, they aren't all scary. I would go with the Sweet peas, they won't choke your other plants. They are also concidered a garden favorite in English cottage gardens. Carol JA
Use the botanical names I provided to look the plants up. Both of those Lathyrus species are referred to as sweet peas here. The large weedy morning glory here is the Calystegia, but varous other plants are called morning glory as well.
I grow both annual morning glory and annual sweet peas. Neither is invasive and neither reseeds for me. Actually, last year I tried growing "tie dye blue" morning glory and couldn't get them to grow more than a few inches. Very disappointing. Around here, the sweet peas last into fall if they are regularly dead-headed and grown in part shade. On the bright side with annual morning glory I tried "Split Personality" morning glory (Ipomoea tricolour) last year and they were very striking - quite different. As mentioned above, bindweed (calystegia sylvatica) is a different plant....er, weed.
Sweet peas are my favorite but my vote is to plant both. The Morning Glory (the white thick ones) everyone talks about is a weed around here. I hate the stuff- it's crazy invasive. However, there are varieties of morning glory that are "happier" than the weedy one. My Sweet peas (Early Spencer) do come back each year and are fast growing. You just have to keep picking them. They smell soooo sweet! Love them! Got more started in hanging baskets this year.
