The Purple Door: August 8, 2010

Back in April, Jack created five perfectly placed flower beds in our backyard which he decorated with pretty, wildlife inviting plants like; Butterfly Bushes, Hummingbird Mint Gomphrena and Butterfly Weed. He also added a few culinary herbs that are enjoyed by wildlife and us including; Italian Flat-Leaf Parsley, Cilantro, Dill, Rosemary, Sage and other’s that I just can’t remember the names of. He also placed wild flowers, which he had painstakingly “raised” (for lack of a better word), from seed, throughout the beds. His hard work in raising the wildflowers really paid off! They are beautiful and have been in full bloom all summer thus far.

Anyway, in addition to all the flowers I mentioned above, Jack planted some Giant Sunflowers which he also raised from seed. I was the most excited about these and couldn’t wait to see if they would be “giant” as promised on the package! Then, to finish out our beds, Jack and I planted a few trees. We planted the largest tree, a Mexican Plum tree, in one of the beds that had the least amount of plants and none of the giant sunflowers…or at least we thought!

Here’s the tree on the day we planted it - April 30, 2010…

You can see, thanks to the red arrow, that there’s a tiny plant behind and off to the side of the tree. We weren’t exactly sure what it was at the time. Jack could not recall planting anything in that particular spot, so he thought that maybe a seed of some sort had somehow gotten dropped in the bed or mixed in the compost before it was laid in the bed. Whatever it was, we were going to let it grow and see. We have tried this with numerous "volunteer" plants that have sprouted in the beds. The rule is, "see what it looks like and if it has pretty blooms". If yes, we keep it. If no, toss it into the compost pile.

By mid-May most of the flowers and bushes were doing really well and had began blooming. As the mystery plant continued to grow, we figured out that it was going to be a sunflower. By June, the sunflowers were in bloom, but they weren’t exactly giant! You’ll see a few pictures of them later at the end of this post. The only sunflower that had not bloomed was the accidental sunflower in the Mexican Plum tree bed.Here’s what it looked like on June 4…

We could tell by the leaves and stalk that this one was going to be considerably bigger then the other sunflowers and by the end of June, we knew it was going to be BIG because it was nearly the same height as the Mexican Plum tree; about eight feet tall or so.

Taken June 30, 2010. It looks strong and healthy, but the Mexican Plum tree isn't looking so good.

I took pictures from time to time, documenting the sunflower's growth. Here are a few...

July 13, 2010.

The bloom is starting to unfold and come alive on July 14, 2010. Awesome! Only problem was, it was facing the wrong direction. It was facing the neighbors back yard, not ours! Sunflowers are supposed to follow the sun!! Right?? Well, not exactly. After this giant failed to ever turn, no mater what time of day it was, I did a little research and it turns out…

"When the plant is in the bud stage, it tends to track the movement of the sun across the horizon. Once the flower opens into the radiance of yellow petals, it faces east. No one knows why. However, it is likely a defensive response. Facing south or west could result in sun-scalding of seeds during very hot days."

Quoted from the National Sunflower Association.

I had to climb our fence to get pictures, but couldn't get a full front-on-shot.

This is what it looked like on July 15, 2010. I honestly thought this was as big as the bloom would get and I was disappointed, it was awfully small for such a huge plant! But, I was wrong; it still had some growing to do!

July 18, 2010.
The bloom is even bigger and the plant itself was almost 12 feet tall!

While the sunflower was obviously thriving, the Mexican Plum tree was not. We couldn’t understand why, but it was beginning to look as if it were dying. We wondered if the sunflower had something to do with its condition and in an effort to save the tree (which was more important then the sunflower, no matter how much I loved it!) we decided that, just in case the sunflower was the cause, we were going to enjoy it for a few more days, and then cut it down.

This just makes me feel happy!

I was exicited everyday to walk outside and see how much the sunflower had grown. On July 20th, I walked out side to find this…

The bloom had gotten so big and heavy that it was leaning over our back fence, facing down into our neighbors yard.

For the first time, I was actually able to see the whole flower without climbing on our fence! I just had to walk underneath it and look up. This is what I saw when I did...

This has got to be one happy bee! At this point, The Mexican Plum tree was looking down right sickly and so, I felt it was time for the sunflower to go. Jack was out of town at the time and so I was left to do the dirty deed all on my own. :(

The sunflower stalk. It wasn't easy cutting it down! The root system was crazy!

When the whole plant was cut down, I cut of the top part of the stalk with the bloom, put it in a vase and placed it outside in a flower bed so that the bee's and butterflies could get to it.

The bloom brought smiles for a few more days before it died.

Here's what the Mexican Plum tree looked like the day I cut down the sunflower...

I'd love to say that it is doing much better, but unfortunately, its not. It actually looks much worse now then it does here. Not sure what we are going to do from here, but if anyone can save it, it's Jack.

So, that's the Giant Sunflower story! I really wanted to post about it because, as I said before, it was something that made me happy, something that I spent a lot of time with, taking pictures of and smiling at. So, I thought sharing the story and the pictures would make you smile some too.

I also wanted to share a few recent pictures that I took of the flowers in our backyard.

Here's one of the giant sunflowers that didn't get so giant.

And here's another

and another...

I have SO many pictures of sunflowers, but I'll give it a rest now. Here are a few of the other wildflowers...

A Bordered Patch Butterfly enjoying a Gomphrena blossom. This guy may have grown up by eating some of our less successful sunflowers!

A bird feeder with permanent guest among wildflowers.

Another Bordered Patch on the "Butterfly Weed"

I want to thank you, Jack, for working so hard on beautifying our yard and providing a place for me to practice my hobby/play with my passion anytime I want. I know most of what you do, you do for me and I am so thankful (even when I complain about you spending too much time outside and not inside!) for the way in which you show your love for me!