Other Underappreciated Flowers in Eeyore's Thistle Patch in The Hundred Acre Wood

Welcome to Nikki, Kilory & Mommy's
Sunflower Appreciation Association Page:

 
(My very own unabashedly stolen and tweaked version of the popular song "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam")

Jesus wants me for a sunflower
To bloom for him each day
In every way try to serve Him
At home, at work, at play
A sunflower
A sunflower
Jesus wants me for a sunflower
A sunflower
A sunflower
I'll be a sunflower for Him

I want to be a sunflower.
Amidst federal-aid-inspiring drought and a blistering Texas heat-wave second only to the worst in history, cheerful volunteer sunflowers blanket the parched fields and line the molten asphalt roads like they do every year without fail. One cannot keep them from smiling at everyone who passes although all around them crops fail and other plants -- from pampered exotics to the mighty oak -- wither.
If a field is mowed under, chewing up the universe in which they and other plants live, the sunflower jumps back to life, to flower freely.
I want to be cheerful. I want to be a survivor. I want to be delicious. I want to always face the sun/Son. I want to volunteer to make the world brighter. I want children to love me. I want butterflies to seek me out. I want to be bright, and sunny, and colorful.
When all around me is mowed to the ground, I want to pop up immediately and bloom and be a bright spot where I am. I want to be a sunflower.

C. Weis

 
For our endangered pollinators nothing is easier or more delicious than plain, side-of-the-road Helianthus annus...the weed called "sunflower." Most every butterfly-attracting plant list will have this cheerful survivor on it...check out the Butterfly Garden Plant List at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Plant Sciences Laboratory.

Plain, side-of-the-road Helianthus annus is so taken for granted I was never able to find seeds for it. Catalogs and seed displays feature any number of hybrid Helianthus with huge, edible seeds, and fashionable colors but to get the butterfly-and-bee favorite I had to "rustle" volunteers at the family farm. I do not sanction or promote trespassing, but just about any vacant field or roadside will have volunteers that can be "rescued" before they are mowed down.

 


We hope you enjoy your visit.