SWEET pea champion Frank Walton used his wife's hairdryer when the lashing rain threatened his entry in Shrewsbury Flower Show.

Mr Walton is something of a rare breed among growers of lathyrus latifolius, that most fragile and scented of flowers.

Today, he will cut 100 sweet peas from his small garden on the banks of the River Wear at Westgate, in Weardale, County Durham, and travel 180 miles to compete against larger growers in Shropshire.

With him on the long journey south will be his wife, Lyn. It may take them until 3am on Friday to arrange his entries, so they will sleep in their car.

Against all the odds, he has established himself as one of only a handful of gardeners in the Yorkshire and Durham dales able to grow sweet peas competitively.

Those odds include having to nurture the flowers in one of the toughest terrains in Britain; his garden in the heart of the rugged North Pennines is 950ft above sea level and gardeners face a very short growing season.

He also has no greenhouse for striking seeds, so puts them in trays and pots dotted around his garden, with some of them ending up on window-sills.

One of the biggest enemies he faces is the driving rain, which can sweep down the dale without warning. If this happens just before a show, Mr Walton is forced to turn to his wife's hairdryer to save his flowers.

He said: "The sweet pea is the queen of the annuals, and I have always regarded them as a great challenge to grow.

"They need meticulous attention every day from seed to show bench."

In the past month, he won four firsts and the president's plate at the 100-year-old Wem show, in Shropshire, and two firsts at the national show at Shugborough, in Staffordshire.

Now the 69-year-old former cement worker from Weardale has his sights set on this weekend's Shrewsbury Show.

He said: "The sweet pea is such a delicate flower, and it is so hard to grow. I just pray the wind and rain stay away."