Tag: nature

Sunflower

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Every year for the past several I’ve been lucky to have volunteer sunflowers scattered throughout the back yard. If they choose to come up in a place that’s not designated for something else, I typically just let them grow as they can. The pollinators love it and the birds enjoy them throughout the fall and winter.

This summer, in one of the raised beds where I put tomatoes, a sunflower started to grow. I didn’t think much of it. One had grown pretty near that same spot last summer, so I decided to see what might come of it. As it started growing it got really big and tall, all green leaves and heavy stem, no blossoms. It just kept climbing like Jack’s beanstalk. It was easily over ten feet tall before it had one tiny blossom at the top. I thought, well, if that’s all I get from a volunteer, I’ll take it–this gangly, tall, beast of a plant with one teeny tiny flower at the top. Then something extraordinary happened. It exploded in gold and brown blossoms all over. It developed branches. I kid you not this thing looked like a tree. At it’s zenith, it was probably 12 to 14 feet in height.

Several weeks ago, I had to make the difficult choice of putting my elderly cat, Usul, to sleep. She was 16 1/2 and in a tremendous amount of pain. The evening before, I dug her grave and when the time came, Mary helped me lay her to rest in it and we gathered those sunflower blossoms and covered her with them. I don’t know why things meet in time like they do, but I felt like my sweet kitty deserved the final honor of being covered with a blanket of sunflower blossoms before being buried.

Now that fall is here and the remaining blossoms have all faded and the seeds are getting ready to scatter for next year, I’m hopeful that another volunteer or many volunteers will choose to grace me and teach me of patience and beauty and honor again. And I have enough that I might share with my loved ones so they can get to enjoy a similar experience.

I encourage you, when something beautiful shows up in your life, let it grow. See what happens. Who knows what can be learned.

My (Not So) Secret Garden

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When I was little, my Mama gave me some illustrated Frances Hodgson Burnett novels, namely A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. I love these stories for the resiliency and pluck of the main characters, but also for their hopefulness, even in solitude and loneliness. Maybe she was giving me a road map she knew I’d need. I’ve found healing in gardens and flowers. I know what it means to be in an untenable situation not of my choosing and how to both survive and thrive in spite of it. These are gifts that certainly endure.

More recently, I’ve been able to witness my cousin and her husband take a rough and abused house and grounds and convert them into the promise of something magical, much like the garden Mary Lennox discovers on her uncle’s property. Their sweat, tears, and laughter (and including a novice like me) ensure this will be a wondrous, welcoming place. In the process of watching the transformation of a wreck into a home, I’ve been inspired to do a small DIY project of my own. After Bryan passed, I moved my bedroom into what was once the office-catch-all-pantry-whatever room. One wall had a lot of patches and holes and needed some TLC. I knew I wanted to do something different, creative, floral, but it was just an idea until recently.

I went through all the steps. TSP wash, painters tape, priming the holes, patching the holes, cutting in the primer, rolling out the primer (a couple of times after a few minor setbacks and mishaps), cutting in the very dark, very dramatic color twice, rolling out twice, and then free-hand painting my own secret (but now that you know, not entirely secret) garden. I wanted something joyful to look at even on my darkest days, which there have been more than a few these past couple of months. This is a gift from me to me now and future me, too. I still have detail work and some leaves to round out the finish. I have a plug-in plate on order that will replace the cream-colored plastic one I got rid of. My sister encourages me to put a small writing desk in my bedroom. I just might do that.

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