I am drawn to daisies. They smile. And one can not help but smile back. They are "happy" flowers. If my whole garden was full of different kinds and colors of daisies and if I could keep them blooming all summer... I'd be a very happy gardener. Closely related to the daisy is the sunflower. There are literally dozens of varieties of sunflowers... short, small, red, orange, yellow, ones with pollen and ones without, tall varieties and giant varieties. I (once again) tried planting the enormous sunflower seed bearing giant grey sunflowers. They can get to 12 foot tall!Our sunflowers easily have made it to the 10 foot height. They are planted right in the middle of the garden... 10 rows of 50 feet each. Enough sunflowers to feed our chickens for a while (or at least that was the plan). I'm having a little difficulty keeping them standing tall. Perhaps they are not meant to stand erect when they are so heavily covered with flower and seed. The poor heads are now turned toward the ground and the thick stems are bending with the weight. About half the "patch" is either falling down or down on the ground. I'm still hopeful that they will set seed (always the optimist).
But who can not smile at the large towering sunflower? When they were in full bloom as you see them here the area was humming with bees... mostly bumble bees. They have a very low hummmmmm and buzzzzzzz when they fly. Whereas the honey bee's flight sound is a gentle, higher pitched beautiful buzz. I'm getting better at distinguishing between the two.
In a few weeks I'll post our harvest from these yellow marvels. In the meantime I will hope for seeds and enjoy the beauty.
Today's journey joy: Sunshine Flowers
