The first year we planted sunflowers at the school, they were in the vegetable garden. I don't even know if we had taken charge of the flower bed, which most now know as the space we have deemed our place away from the veggie garden (and deer). The second year we planted, I decided to fill a 20 foot bed in the veggie garden. I had this image that anyone driving into the lower parking lot would be met with a billion suns. We planted on a Friday and by the time I drove down that drive way, all had been eaten by a mammal of some sort. I wonder if that is when I tried to get a deer fence, which never happened???
The next attempt was in our flower bed. The home has been behind the day lilies. So as they fade out, as they are now, something towering and beautiful would catch the eye, instead of the dying lilies. This year we planted some on the other side of the garden, and there is one with a red tint to its leaves and much red to its flowers, and you are looking at the only opened sunflower bud as of 7/31/09. Moulin Rouge is its name and it is the first red sunflower I have grown. My wife is already imaging a mosaic in its honor.
But why two beds you ask? What motivated me was our involvement in The Great Sunflower Project which I wrote about back in March. And those sunflowers are growing and prospering behind the day lilies. Any day we will be watching for bees and sending data to the scientist running this experiment. we just need to be patient and let the flowers emerge...
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my favored sunflower photo from 2008
