Today I am finding myself overwhelmed by the gregarious friendliness and striking beauty of the Sunflowers I have growing in my garden. The first seeds I planted in mid May are now 8 feet tall, full out sunflowers and they are doing their sunflower thing which includes a few facts that kinda blow my mind.
These babies can grow several inches per day and now that I am a sunflower mama watching her flower kiddos grow, I know this is true. By this time in the season I can detect growth overnight. And, these big headed beauties do something called solar tracking- every day they follow the sun in it’s east to west journey and then they turn their gorgeous/ bodacious heads back towards the east at sundown to await the morning light. Intelligent plant life is happening.
The mystic in me loves the this:Sunflower disks are arranged in the Fibonacci sequence, the same mathematical sequence found in pinecones and our milky Way galaxy. And if these characteristic aren’t wondrous enough, I just learned that sunflowers are known to remove toxins from soil— so much so that after the Fukushima nuclear power plant leak, sunflowers were planted at the toxic site to remediate the land. I bow to you my giant, happy faced flowers.
Oh, and here’s another thing: Apparently all parts of sunflowers are edible. Now, whoever is listening to this, do your own extended research before you start to prepare sunflower root stews because I have not done a deep dive on this one. Speaking of the gift that keeps giving as sunflowers are, rumor has it that their spent heads make good scrubber sponges. I have not tried this one so don’t blame me if you try this and you dishes turn bizarre shades of yellow and gold.
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