I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you when you know that what I’m at is the painting of some sunflowers.
– Vincent van Gogh –
Just about my favourite flowers are sunflowers. Big sunflowers. So bright and bold and brash. This year I planted 6 giant sunflowers in the new planters on the front patio. They grew well, soon dwarfing the grasses I had planted. But would the sunflowers bloom before they were bitten by the first hard frosts of the fall?
Oddly enough, the first sunflower to bloom was the shortest one and the one that got the least sun. After that, they bloomed in succession, with the one that got the most sun each day blooming last. This isn’t a very good plan on the part of the sunflower world, because the tallest sunflower stood a very good chance of being snuffed out by winter before it got a chance to produce seed…
We eventually chopped off their heads and laid them near the bird feeder. It wasn’t long before the flickers and jays found them and started to feed. The birds always lose a few seeds, and these escapees sprout in spring and start the circle again.
Amusives 