True Friends

“True friends are like bright sunflowers that never fade away even over distance and time.” (Marie Williams Johnstone)

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are known for evoking feelings of positivity because of their large, yellow blooms. Sunflowers are multipurpose plants that deliver healthy snacks, useful oil, and birdseeds. The flower head can be up to 30 cm wide. Other types of sunflowers include the California Royal Sunflower, which has a burgundy (red + purple) flower head.

The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas. That is why Kansas is sometimes called the Sunflower State. To grow well, sunflowers need full sun. They grow best in fertile, wet, well-drained soil with a lot of mulch. In commercial planting, seeds are planted 45 cm (1.5 ft) apart and 2.5 cm (1 in) deep. Let your garden knowledge flourishes with these facts about sunflowers:

1.   THE WORLD'S TALLEST SUNFLOWER REACHES 30 FEET AND 1 INCH: In the summer of 2014, Veteran green-thumb Hans-Peter Schiffer toppled the Guinness World Record for a third year in a row. The local fire brigade lent its help in measuring the sunflower, which required its own scaffold.

 

2.   THEIR POPULARITY STANDS THE TEST OF TIME: Russian immigrants to the United States in the 19th century brought back highly developed sunflower seeds that grew bigger blooms, and sparked a renewed interest in the Native American plant. Later, American sunflower production exploded when Missouri farmers began producing sunflower oil in 1946, when Canada unveiled a mechanical seed-crushing plant, and in the 1970s, when consumers looked for low-cholesterol alternatives to animal fats.

 

 

3.   THEY ARE ACTUALLY THOUSANDS OF TINY FLOWERS: Each sunflower's head is made of smaller flowers. The petals we see around the outside are called ray florets, and they cannot reproduce. The disc florets in the middle, where the seeds develop, have both male and female sex organs. Each produces a seed. They can self-pollinate, take pollen blown by the wind, or transported by insects. 

 

4.   THEY CAN BE USED AS SCRUBBING PADS: Once the flower heads are empty of seeds, they can be converting into disposable scrubbing pads for jobs too tough for your cleaning tool.  

 

 

5.   THEY HAVE A HISTORY OF HEALING: In Mexico, the flowers were thought to sooth chest pain. A number of Native American tribes agreed with the plant's curing properties. The Cherokee utilized an infusion of sunflower leaves to treat kidneys while the Dakota brought it out to sooth chest pain and pulmonary troubles. 

 

6.   THEY HAVE TRAVELED TO SPACE: In 2012, U.S. astronaut Don Pettit brought along a few companions to the International Space Station: sunflower seeds. Petit regularly blogged about his budding friendship and shared photos of the gardening process of sunflowers. 

 

 

7.   THEY NEED A LOT OF RAYS AND ROOM: The flowers not only look like the sun. They need a lot of it. They grow best with about six to eight hours a day but more is even better. They can grow as tall as 16 feet although many varieties have been developed to thrive at different heights. Flowers planted too close together will compete and not blossom to their full potential.

 

8.   THEY TRACK THE SUN: Sunflowers display a behavior called heliotropism. The flower buds and young blossoms will face east in the morning and follow the sun as the earth moves during the day. However, as the flowers get heavier during seed production, the stems will stiffen and the mature flower heads will generally remain facing east.

 

9.   THEY WERE BROUGHT TO RUSSIA BY ROYALTY: Tsar Peter the Great was so fascinated by the sunny flowers he saw in the Netherlands that he took some back to Russia. They became popular when people discovered that sunflower seed oil was not banned during Lent, unlike the other oils the Russian Orthodox Church banned its patrons from consuming. By the 19th century, the country was planting two million acres of sunflowers every year.

 

10.       THEY'RE NATIVE TO THE AMERICAS: Like potatoes, tomatoes, and corn, these cheerful plants didn't originate in Europe. They were cultivated in North America as far back as 3000 BCE, when they were developed for food, medicine, dye, and oil. Then, they were exported to the rest of the world by Spanish conquistadors around 1500.

 “Someone was sitting in front of a sunflower, watching the sunflower, a cup of sun, and so I tried it too. It was wonderful; I felt the whole universe in the sunflower. That was my experience. Sunflower meditation: a wonderful confidence appeared. You can see the whole universe in a flower.” (Shunryu Suzuki) [i]

My daughter, Allena,  in a field of Minnesota sunflowers

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[i] Sources used:

·     “10 Glorious Facts about Sunflowers” BY Miss Cellania

·        “Fun Facts about Sunflowers” by Colleen Vanderlinden 

·        “Sunflower facts for kids” from Kids Encyclopedia

 

This post is dedicated to my daughter.