Growing up in the country
The ditches of the county roads
Were lined with sunflowers
This time of year.
Maybe that why I’ve always loved Sunflowers.
Who doesn’t.
It’s hard not to smile
When you see one.
For some unknown reason.
I’ve never been able to grow them.
I would plant the seeds
And nothing would happen.
I blamed birds
For dining on each and every seed.
Leaving nothing to sprout.
That all changed last year.
Somehow smack in the middle of a crepe myrtle
That John had carefully nursed into life
A sunflower sprouted
Then grew
And grew.
I guarded it carefully
In case John chose his shrub
Over my flower.
Both survived.
The Sunflower bloomed as it towered above
Everything else at the east end
Of the garden.
I let it go to seed
To provide lots of food for those birds.
They must have felt guilty
For all those years of wiping me out
And they left a little patch of seeds.
The result is a Sunflower jungle
Growing wildly.
I pulled several of the volunteers
But a half-dozen or so survived
And are now somewhere around 12 feet tall
So loaded with buds and blooms
That the slightest wind or rain
Renders them horizontal.
Combine this with the forsythia
And Viburnum
At this end of the garden
And you would think that no one
Tends this garden.
Yet I can only bring myself
To cut just enough for bouquets.
I’ll just think of it as
The “wild child” end of the garden.
And let it be for now.
Some things just need a little grace.
Gail
In My Garden 