April Birth Flowers: Daisy and Sweet Pea (gouache style)

The common daisy, Bellis perennis, isn't one flower but a whole head of them: white outer florets, often tipped pink, around a yellow centre of tiny disc florets. It closes at night and in dull weather, which gave it the name day's eye. The sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, is an annual climber from Sicily and southern Italy that reached Britain around 1700. It climbs with tendrils and is grown above all for its scent.

Daisies flower in lawns from early spring, and they're a useful early food for small bees and hoverflies, so mowing less often or raising the blades lets them bloom. Sweet peas can be sown under cover in autumn or from late winter into spring. Pinch out the tips once seedlings have three or four pairs of leaves, then plant them out in April or May against canes or netting. Pick the flowers every few days, because letting pods form stops the plants flowering.

White daisies sit beside sweet peas in pink, mauve and white, set on a pale chartreuse ground. One is a small wild flower of the lawn, the other a cottage-garden climber grown for the vase, and the picture brings the two together. The fresh green background suits April, when lawns and hedges are greening up again.