There are a few nurseries I adore; Annie's Annuals is one of them. I'm fortunate to live close enough that I can visit any time, just a quick trip up the freeway and blammo - plant geek heaven. They have a penchant for growing really cool stuff, I assume from seed sourced beyond our U.S. borders.

(I wrote this post ages ago but it never got published. Thankfully, Annie’s still has this sweet pea on their website so now I’m updating and publishing it)

I'm not sure when it was introduced, but in Spring of 2014 (sigh - I’ve taken six years to post this), I saw they were carrying a new sweet pea (new to me) called 'Blue Shift'. I have tremendous fondness for sweet peas, especially “blue” ones. I also have a fondness for odd plants and interesting colored flowers (show me a naturally gray, brown, black or green flower and you have my attention). I don't know why I'm so enamored with flowers that some people might think less "colorful", and I can't tell you why "colorful" for some people seems to mean only the kinds of colors found on a clown suit. I also can’t speak to any rationale that these people have that suggests a clown suit is any prettier to look at than these distinctive subtle shades. Is it an introvert/extrovert thing? Is it me? Really? Just me?

Anyway, I grew it in 2014 and I took a few snapshots of it in the yard. Did you see the link above to their website? Did you see the photo with all that BOLD blue-violet? gorgeous, right? Mine didn’t come up like that:

Mine were totally different, all RED-violet and gorgeous, but they looked just like another sweet pea called ‘Cupani’.

I cut them.

I put them in water in the dining room.

ohhh. I see….

Now, that is dramatic. It began to change overnight and kept changing. The pigmentation fleeting and leaving it just. Well, interesting and delicate looking. Still just me? Surely, I’m not the only one who thinks this is cool as shit.