Faith & Sunflowers

When Josh and I were newlyweds, we bought our first house together on a central street in Tremonton. It was a cute little starter home that previously belonged to the mother of a man that lived in Salmon (who Josh knew!). The home had recently had some upgrades like new carpet, windows, new paint (both in and out), and bathroom fixtures. But the home really lacked in the yard department; it was boring and uninspiring. There was one tree in the backyard, and that was it--no flowers or other trees or landscaping. Josh and I lived in that home for the first 2 1/2 years of our married lives, and we worked on improving the yard little by little in that time. We bought two trees for the front yard (which are now super tall and provide lots of shade), we pruned and shaped another tree that was a volunteer growth near the curb, we created a border around the perimeter of the fence in the backyard using red logs, we took off the railing along the front walkway and planted flowers and added yard decorations under the windows by the porch, we added dwarf spruces to the front curb, and we started adding a walkway from the back door of the garage to the back door of the house. I loved beautifying the yard little by little!

The house and front yard in 1998 after we bought it.

The house and front yard in 2000, when we were preparing to move.

Josh and I worked together on the projects to improve the yard, but there was one project I did all alone--trying to grow sunflowers. I wanted a long row of beautiful sunflowers to grow along the edge of the front/back yards that faced our neighbor to the north (on the right side of the above picture, you can see the chaink link fence which is where I wanted to the sunflowers to grow). We'd installed the redwood border along the fence, and the neighbor's yard was even worse off than ours and I was tired of looking at it, so I thought the beautiful, TALL, sunflowers would go perfect there. I planted the seeds, I watered them FAITHFULLY every day or every other day for WEEKS. Not a thing ever grew, except weeds of course. I became so discouraged from trying so hard to get them to grow, and wanting them so bad, and I was upset because I was hoping that I could do something on my own that looked good around the yard since I'd helped Josh with all the other projects and was trying to increase my confidence with outdoor projects as a young wife. When they never appeared from the dirt, I told myself that I NEVER wanted to grow sunflowers again, because it was such a devastation for me at that time, and attempting to grow sunflowers would surely just remind me of being a failure. 

Fast forward 16 years. One day at church at the beginning of May this past year, our primary chorister taught the kids the song "Faith". One of the phrases in the song is: "faith is like a little seed, when planted it will grow". She gave each of the kids a cup, they filled it with soil, planted two sunflower seeds, watered it, covered it, and took it home at the end of church. Since I had 3 kids in primary, 3 cups came home--with the potential for 6 flowers. They put their cups in the windowsill where the sun shines every morning, and the boys faithfully watered their plants every day (one of the cups always had water in it, and after a week we realized it would need a drain at the bottom or the seeds would just drown). After 10 days, there was amazing growth coming from each cup (the middle cup is the delayed one due to the week-long drowning).  

It was fun to see the daily growth in the sunflowers. Two weeks later, the drowned plant had surpassed the others--possibly because only one plant took growth instead of two from the potted soil. By June, one of the plants had died (on the left) because of mis-handling from the boys, but the others were getting so tall. .

It was around this time that the boys quit watering them--they didn't seem to care about them anymore, but I couldn't stop taking care of them; seeing the growth of the sunflowers was healing and brought me hope. I felt like if I did everything I could, that they would actually grow into what I'd so desperately hoped for when I planted them back in 1999!  I watered them in the windowsill until I knew that they would be safe to transplant outside. I picked a spot right between the dirt pile and the raspberry garden to permanently plant them because I watered the raspberries multiple times a week, and if they were near them, I wouldn't forget to water the sunflowers, too. 

One of the plants didn't grow straight, so I put a tomato wire around it, so it would help it to grow more vertical instead of horizontal. Then the deer started chewing on some of their leaves, so I added another tomato wire around another of the plants. I enjoyed looking at them multiple times a week as I watered them throughout the summer. It was a good year for sunflowers, and by the end of August, there were sunflowers blooming everywhere, seriously everywhere I looked there they were--well, everywhere it seemed but my yard. 

I was worried that they wouldn't have a chance to bloom before the first freeze, and I started feeling that same discouragement that I remember feeling so long ago regarding my ability to grow sunflowers. They're supposed to be easy to grow, so why was it so hard for ME?!! The second week of September, I saw a sign that perhaps my hope would be realized--a single flower was beginning to form! 

September 9

I have never been so excited for a flower to bloom! I inspected it every single day after that, waiting with anticipation for it to open up its pedals.

September 12

September 20

Finally, on Jonah and Micah's 12th birthday, a sunflower opened!!! It was so exciting! I told everyone in the family about it, but nobody was nearly as happy about it as me!

September 22

The very next day, I was so mad to see that a deer had chomped it--it had bitten off a few of the pedals and a leaf along the top. But I was glad to see that it was still there. I looked closely at the center of the flower as the seeds were developing.

September 23

Just two days later, the seeds in the center were increasing in their development and the core was half-way done poking out. Because we'd had such a nice fall, I thought there may be a chance after all that it would finish growing and that the seeds would fall and replant themselves next year, and I'd have a volunteer sunflower garden at last!!

September 25

But, tragically, two days later, this is all that remained of the beautiful sunflower:

A deer completely devoured it, along with one of the other plants that was beginning to grow two sunflowers on it. I was so devastated (and ready to have revenge on the deer on opening day less than two weeks away!). I can't believe that after babying these plants for 4 months I STILL never got to see any of them mature. But, watching that single sunflower grow did restore my faith in my ability to grow sunflowers, and next year I plan on planting a whole row of them between our backyard grass and the fence that separates our yard from the ditch.  So, although I'm sad I didn't see this particular sunflower grow to its final stages, it was a good experience for me to have these sunflowers this summer. They filled me with hope and returned my desire to have a yard lined with sunflowers. I'm not sure what the problem was 16 years ago, but I finally realize that I was not the problem--because I was the one who planted and watered them this year, and they still grew under my care (it's just the deer I have to contend with now, though!).