Where the Sunflowers Still Remember

Every year around this time, something golden starts happening. Even while days turn slightly shorter, the sun lingers just a little longer, the air thickens with August weight, and—like clockwork—my favorite flowers return: sunflowers! These gentle giants even have their own day, and today—the second Saturday in August—is National Sunflower Day in the USA.

Those who know me understand that I plant them every year. But not this one.

And yet, they came anyway.

Sunflowers—bold, defiant, joyful things—pushed through cracked earth and unwatered corners. Volunteers, every one of them. I’ve always grown sunflowers intentionally, scattering seeds with care in spring, choosing varieties by height or hue. But this August, the sunflowers chose me. They rose up where the soil remembered. Where last year’s roots left hope.

And then, right on cue, Facebook served up a memory from years ago. A photo of one of our tallest sunflowers—so tall we couldn’t even measure it properly. We estimate it was around 17 feet. A single stalk stretching skyward like it had somewhere urgent to be.

That photo stopped me. Not just for the height, but for what it meant. That year, we nurtured those giants. We watched them tower over rooftops, defying gravity, catching the light before anything else could.

Now, years later, I have only volunteers—scattered, a bit smaller, untamed. But somehow, that makes them feel even more powerful. Because this year, I didn't water or plan or prune. I simply survived. And still, the sunflowers came.

That old photo is more than nostalgia. It’s a symbol. A reminder that even when your current season feels smaller, your roots are still strong. That there were days you grew giants. And maybe those days will come again. But for now, the volunteers are enough. More than enough.

So, this August, I’m celebrating both the memory and the miracle—the towering stalks of yesterday and the quiet return of golden resilience today. I’ll let the tall ones remind me of what’s possible. And I’ll let the volunteers teach me that joy doesn’t always have to be cultivated. Sometimes, it just shows up.

When Nature Says: "I Got You"

 

Every spring, I seed sunflowers like clockwork. It’s part ritual, part rebellion — a promise to myself that something tall, bold, and unapologetically yellow will rise from the dirt no matter what else is falling apart. But this year? I didn’t.

Not out of laziness. Not even out of forgetfulness.
I just couldn’t.
Body said no. Energy said nah. Nervous system said, “Have you seen the humidity index?”

(Yes, I have. Thank you, corn sweat.)

So, I made peace with it. Told myself this would be the Summer of No Sunflowers. Maybe next year. Maybe never. There’s a grief in that, quiet and strange, when you stop doing the things that once rooted you. But here’s the twist:

The sunflowers came anyway.

Uninvited. Unbothered. And not in the beds I so carefully prepped in years prior, either — nope. These rebels popped up outside the lines. Between the weeds, on the unruly patch that functions as our lawn, like they knew I wouldn’t have the bandwidth to fuss over them, so they just handled it.

They are tall. They are loud. They are blooming.

And we didn’t water them. Not once. Why? Because the weather forecast has been one long lie of “super soakers incoming!” that somehow never come. Every week it's like, “Pack your floaties!” and then—nothing. Dust. Regret. A storm-shaped mirage.

Meanwhile, the sunflowers? Thriving. No hose, no help, no problem.
I don’t even know how the seeds survived, honestly. This yard is bird central. Like Hitchcock levels. Any loose seed is usually a snack with wings. But somehow, these sneaky little stragglers made it. Like they heard me sigh one evening and whispered, “Don’t worry. We got this.”

So now I wake up, peek out the door, and I see them — glowing like golden middle fingers to despair.
Or maybe little halos of hope.
Or both.

That’s the thing about sunflowers. They turn toward the light, yes, but they start in the dark. They fight their way through crowded earth and peckish predators. They grow tall not because someone begged them to, but because that’s what they’re wired for.

I used to think I was the one planting hope when I dropped those seeds.
But maybe hope had a backup plan.

A to Z Challenge 2019: S is for Sunflowers

I was wrangling with the idea of whether to use sunflowers or snowdrops for this post. Snowdrops are my favorite spring flower and sunflowers my favorite flower overall. Because the season for snowdrops has passed, I decided to go with sunflowers instead.

Since I've moved to the Chicago area, I've grown them every year. I especially like the non-yellow varieties, and I've even grown "black" ones (they're really a deep burgundy). I have grown miniature ones, but I love the mammoth size best. This year, I am participating in a sunflower/bee challenge. You can read about it (and join) at https://www.greatsunflower.org/.

However, my love for sunflowers started in childhood over 40 years ago. It sparked a creative piece I wrote a while back, and it eventually was published in an Australian literary journal called Meniscus.

Writing it was one of the most emotionally tolling experiences because I don't like to visit my childhood, and the long process to get it published wasn't much easier. Alas, the editor of the paper saw something in that piece, and it remains my only creative work for which I received more than a token payment.

(It's called "The Garden" and is on the last page--how appropriate): https://www.meniscus.org.au/Vol3_Iss2.pdf

A Friend for Baby Spruce

Some of you are familiar with Baby Spruce, our potted Dwarf Alberta Spruce tree which we acquired in September 2013. Well, a few weeks ago Tom found a wooden planter that someone had thrown away. As with all gardening items that are still in reasonable shape, they end up with us. So did the planter, of course.

We had it sitting here and wondered what to put into it. We figured why not get another baby tree? We had the idea to get another evergreen because winters are so dreary here. So, today when we went to Home Depot for potting soil we were "just looking" at evergreens and found a tiny arborvitae, thuja occidentalis Smaragd, to be exact. It went home with us, so now Baby Spruce has a new buddy: Welcome Baby Vitae to the Heepy family.

Some of you might wonder why we don't just put trees into the ground. For one, we have very little outdoor space and the trees would get stepped on by people going through our yard. Also, should we decide to move, we can take the trees with us easier.

May 2 is Naked Gardening Day

No, I am not making this up. May 2 is really Naked Gardening Day (you can research it, if you want). I think it's kind of early in the year though for a day like this. May is not exactly warm enough everywhere for something like that. Today it's actually 75 here in the Chicago area, one of the warmest days so far this spring. Spring being a relative term as we had freeze and frost not long ago and we have had a stiff north wind for like what seems forever. Today seems like a turning point.

Not that it would be feasible to do that anyway, unless you live in a very private area or the middle of the boondocks. The only naked lady you'll be seeing here is the one in my garden. Yes, there is a flower called Naked Lady. I was given one last year. It also goes by a variety of other names like Painted Lady or Magic Lily. Yup, it's the one you see in the picture.

May 1 is International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day

Sunflowers are so tame and beautiful, what is all this guerrilla talk? Well, International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day is an annual event on May 1. It invites people to do some optimistic sunflower seed sowing. This includes spreading them on public property or other people's yards (hence the word guerrilla). Since sunflowers are my favorite summer flower, of course we will be doing this later today.

So, grab a handful of sunflower seeds and celebrate! No, not by eating them, by planting the joy.

State of the Trailer Park Flower Garden

Some of you might know that I used to blog about our gardening adventures on another site. Well, I don't write on that site anymore, so this is what you get. Plus, in the Chicago area we have been on a six month gardening hiatus. However, we are finally back in business. That is right, we've been out in the garden recently.

So, in the flower garden we removed some mulch a few weeks back, and the snowdrops came up around the end of March, but are already done because it got too warm. Some of the crocus are in bloom now, with others lagging behind. For some reason the yellow ones are being eaten though.

Also, about half of the crocuses are lagging behind. I can see the sprouts, but no blooms. Just about all the spring bulbs have sprouted, except for hiacynth that I planted last fall. Perhaps they only seem late in coming up because the other spring bulbs are in their second year already. We'll see. I did see a few new sprouts today that could be said hyacinths.

I also forgot that I had planted some more daffodils last year in the back, so they are coming up. We had daffodils in the front part of the garden (shorter varieties) already, but I must have picked up some taller varieties last fall. Well, we will see. I have no idea what color combo they are, so that will be a nice surprise.

We were also given a bunch of white iris divisions last year by one of the property management employees. They were digging them out and were going to throw them out, but she knows I love to garden so gave them to me. She also gave me a Painted Lady. We were concerned about that one because it got ripped out in the middle of its blooming cycle. Well, all the white irises sprouts are up and a bunch of sprouts are showing where the Painted Lady was planted. I know it's no guarantee they will bloom this year, but at least they are alive.

I am also pleasantly surprised to see that the mums we planted last August are actually coming back. The thing with "hardy" mums is that most people (including myself) do it wrong. Technically, they are supposed to be planted in the spring, not in the fall, if you want them to come back the next year.

Well, I did not abide by that. Why? Because we have two flower beds in front of the trailer that face the streets. I usually put sunflowers there, but of course by end of August at the last they are done. Since mums are the only thing you can get at that time, that is what I got. I did not think they had enough time to establish themselves, especially with the super cold February we have had, but I guess the large amount of snow that covered them helped.

And to think, we almost ripped them out. They were a dry mess a few weeks ago and I gave Tom the green light to rip them out. Alas, I am glad he did not because he noticed new growth. So, I trimmed all the dead stuff off and we'll see how it goes. I will still put sunflowers in that bed, they'll just fill in the spaces.

Today I planted some summer bulbs (litaris blazing star). We also did some work in the veggie plot, but that will be a different post.