I came late to sunflowers. I didn’t love them much as a child. Too big, maybe too one-note. And at first I was concerned they might be too dominant for the allotment, leech necessary nutrients from food plants, block much-needed light. But that was then.
The shift was swift. There is a photo of the early plot with Howard and his young daughters where the girls look like something from Rousseau, as though lost in a sunflower forest. And it was through them and other children I discovered my own late love. We worked for a time with a school gardening club, encouraging primary-age kids to grow together. It was the wonder on their faces at how fast their flowers thrust that made sunflowers irresistible.
Our kitchen looks over my daughter Kala’s garden (three plots away as the crow flies), there I watch her sunflowers growing a foot or more a week. The tiny seedlings of early June are now giant plants with umbrella leaves and butter-coloured flowers that tower over her. Some are from our saved seed, some I bought for her birthday sowing. Four have been transplanted to the edge of Plot 29 where they grow like redwood trees.
Another five have self-seeded in the heart of the allotment. These are touching three-and-half metres tall with multiple branches and blooms. Some stems are tinged with purple. The flowers are different sizes and varying hues of gold. They are all bee magnets. Some insects seem stuck to the face of the flowers as though too stoned to move. The air around them is alive with other flying things. Later, the birds will feed on seed, warily edging along the branches. We will leave them now late into winter until they’re stark like skeletons. They make us happy; their exuberant height essential to the late summer plot.
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