Will We Soon Have Sunflowers Blooming Year Round?

It's a lovely and welcome sight, no doubt, but something must be wrong.  We may get snow this weekend!  (Picture taken on Saturday in the upper 500 block of State.)

This year seemed (seems!) to be a particularly good one for sunflowers.  My three plants did really well without much watering, each reaching about 9 feet tall, and I noticed others around town looking quite content and prolific, maybe more than usual. I can't imagine living where there are no sunflowers -- they seem helpful, perhaps even crucial, in so many ways, particularly since we have chosen to surround ourselves with concrete, asphalt and various man-made structures, most of them ugly and full of straight, unnatural edges.  If only for our stressed bee populations, more sunflowers would be a good thing.  They also serve a stressed society well.  No one's eyes have ever been damaged by staring at a yellow sunflower.

Look at all the pollen she's collected!
(Apis Mellifera, aka honeybee, 
on a sunflower of mine.)

 

The old saying STOP AND SMELL THE FLOWERS (forget the roses!) is particularly apt when it comes to the humble sunflower. Do not pass them by or take them for granted while they are around!  Most people don't know what the honeybees do: sunflowers smell wonderful when in bloom. You just have to get your nose right in there. Believe me, it's worth it (and the bees don't mind)!  Hurry, there's still time before the snow arrives.

2nd & Rope in September. Free 
for the sniffing!

5th at Prison Alley in early September, an annual treat. 

Has there ever been a bad person devoid of hope who decided to grow sunflowers?  Do you think our present so-called U.S. President -- the guy who is not at all presidential and who paved over the Rose Garden -- has ever seen any beauty or hope in a sunflower, if he's ever even noticed one?  

Given how important -- even critical -- the sunflower plant was to the culture and survival of native people living in what the European intruders decided to call New York State, there is no reason the rose should be our state flower.  That choice shows a lack of imagination, historical understanding, and respect. Plus, roses can be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to grow, they don't self-seed, they have thorns, and bees generally prefer sunflowers to them.  The mighty but humble sunflower is the people's flower, not the rose, a flower typically associated with high society and well-tended estates.