Flowers, the Royal Mail’s first Special Stamp issue to feature the silhouette of the newly crowned King Charles III was issued at the end of March (see Stamp Collector May 2023). Fittingly for a monarch whose love of nature and gardening is well-known, the ten stamps in the set carry bright, beautiful images of the classic flowers beloved of gardeners throughout the UK. The flowers on these stamps are familiar friends – fragrant and lovely – seen in gardens the length and breadth of the country.
• 1st Sweet Pea
Sweet pea () is a sweetly scented annual climbing plant native to Sicily and Southern Italy, where they grow wild. In the 19th century, Scottish horticulturist Henry Eckford, working as head gardener for the Earl of Radnor, cross-bred and
