| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
The Whitehurst Diaries: Sunflower Memories 'Everything about sunflowers pleases me: their robustness and willingness to grow in spite of heat, drought, wind, poor soil or neglect . . . I walk along the row, hearing the hum of bees, recalling other years and other gardens. Should I grow too old to prune roses or painstakingly weed the perennials, still I will toss out a handful of sunflower seeds and delight in their glorious exuberance.' - Sharon Whitehurst Click on headline for complete essay, accompanied by photo(s) of the species, which the author finds flourishes at her home in Gradyville, KY, as well as Kansas and other places she has visited or been. By Sharon Whitehurst My Grampa Mac grew sunflowers, a few seeds flung along the edges of the field corn piece, a few more in a tidy row in the fenced garden below the back yard. If there were miniature sunflowers or exotic colors at the time, we didn't know about them. Grampa Mac's sunflowers were the tall, sturdy classics--bright yellow petals surrounding a center disk of brown. The seeds were large, grey and white striped. Grampa Mac used his Barlow knife to slice the sunflower heads from the drying stalks. Saved twine from feed sacks served to suspend the seed-heavy rounds in the far corner of the covered porch. During the snow-bound months of January and February, one head at a time was placed on an old metal table. The sparrows and bluejays who feasted on this offering were easily viewed through the living room window. In the arid high desert that constitutes much of Wyoming, I was surprised to find sunflowers. These natives are many-branched with small blossoms. They find a root-hold in the hard-packed grit which edges tarred roads. Scourging winds force the slender stalks into twisted shapes, bending them nearly horizontal. Undaunted, the sunflowers bloom, a tangled blaze of golden yellow under hot blue skies. I've ridden through Kansas in early September where whole fields of commercially grown sunflowers await harvest, golden heads veering in their endless worship of the sun. I meant to plant a thick row of sunflowers along the fence of the upper garden, where they could, if necessary, be lashed to the sturdy wire mesh for support as they grew tall. I was tardy in doing this, busy with a massive weeding and mulching of the perennial strips, helping Jim to get in the early veg plantings. As the weather turned hot and dry, I abandoned the idea, contenting myself with the volunteer sunflowers that clambered over the rubble of the dismantled raised bed at the back of the garage. At some point J. ran the tiller through a strip where I had optimistically sowed a muddle of flower seeds...annuals bought several years ago. Whether they were going to germinate or not remained unclear. The churning blades of the tiller created a clean swath of earth, so I went out with a bag of seed saved from last summer's dwarf sunflowers, and strewed them thickly. I had given up on them, when, after a light July rain, small plants began to poke through the soil. Everything about sunflowers pleases me: their robustness and willingness to grow in spite of heat, drought, wind, poor soil or neglect. They are blowsy, gaudy, ebullient.I walk along the row, hearing the hum of bees, recalling other years and other gardens. Should I grow too old to prune roses or painstakingly weed the perennials, still I will toss out a handful of sunflower seeds and delight in their glorious exuberance. - Sharon Whitehurst This story was posted on 2012-09-16 06:51:34
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know.
More articles from topic Sharon Whitehurst - Whitehurst Diaries:
Sharon Whitehurst: Most of feline companions are rescue cats Sharon Whitehurst: Of drought and thunderstorms The Whitehurst Diaries: The story of Teasel The Whitehurst Diaries: Potatoes and Seed Balls The Whitehurst Diaries: Tree Swallows The Whitehurst Diaries: Tea With the Bluebirds Sharon Whitehurst suggests teensy blue flower is species of flax The Whitehurst Diaries: We are Daughters of Eve The Whitehurst Diaries: Walking with Willis Sharon Whitehurst: Flower is common fleabane View even more articles in topic Sharon Whitehurst - Whitehurst Diaries |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
