A giant mutant sunflower is growing right outside my back
door, in the whimsically named “garden” around my fence. There’s really not
much to say about this giant mutant sunflower except, “Holy Moly, that’s some
honkin’ big sunflower plant!!!” I hardly ever allow myself the indulgence of
exclamation points, but if ever there were a time for them, the appearance of
this sunflower would be it.
Please note: From the “All Hat, No Cattle” Department: This
bad boy is all plant, no sunflower – so far, at least. If it does finally work
up an actual flower or two I’ll never know it because it’s now too high for me
to see to the top.
This plant is, without exaggeration, at least 12 feet tall
now. That fence beside it is 6 feet tall, and the plant has grown another foot
or so since I took this photo last week.
I have no idea why this particular sunflower developed a
wild hair and started reaching for the sky. Maybe it always dreamed of being a
beanstalk. Maybe one of these days fairy tale characters will come tumbling
down it into my yard. Maybe a little speck of radioactive dust landed on that
one piece of ground just as it was starting to grow. Maybe smokin’ big mutant
sunflowers like this are fairly common and I just don’t know about it. If that is the case, I hope
Constant Reader will let me know (with photos and we’ll share them).
I have several relatively tall sunflower plants back there (nothing
like the giant mutant), a foot or so taller than me, and here’s the really
weird thing: None of the sunflowers on that side of the garden has grown a
single blossom. A couple of buds are straining to blossom now, but that’s
pretty much it for the dozen or so plants on the east side of my yard. On the
west side, I’ve cut lots of pretty sunflowers, both ‘Moulin Rouge’ – my new
favorite variety – and several ‘Lemon Queen’, which I harvest every few days
for flower arrangements for my house. But on the east side? Nada. Zip. Zilch.
For numerous reasons, my garden sort of didn’t happen this
year. After moderate self-recrimination (“Bad gardener, bad, bad gardener…”) I have now chosen to be
philosophical about that fact and use what actually did happen as coaching for next year. One lesson is that sunflowers
are quite transitory when used as cut flowers and only last a couple of days
indoors before they go all droopy and sad-looking and spit pollen all over the
table. Next year, the garden going to be all about flowers (no, I really mean it. NO TOMATOES), so any
suggestions for cut flowers that stay nice and grow in an extremely neglectful
home would be welcome. I’ll still do sunflowers, but enough with the mono-crop
already.
My friend Taylor tells me that my eastern crop is growing plants without
flowers because I have too much nitrogen and need some phosphorus.Another lesson learned is to test the soil
before I plant, and to test several areas of the garden when I do. I could swear I
treated all the tilled-up space equally, but apparently the chemistry on the
east side was significantly different from that on the west side to begin with.
So, next year, I’ll be methodical. No, really.
But look at it this way: If I had been all methodical and
scientific about how I approached my garden this year, we would have missed
this great occasion for Wow!!! So at
the very least, my haphazard, inconsistent ways did have a silver lining.
And who knows? Maybe Jack will come tumbling down that
sunflower stalk any day now. Maybe he’ll love dogs, be about my age, have most of his teeth, a reliable source of income …
Bad gardener. Bad, bad
gardener.
