In all my sunflower-growing bliss, I had overlooked an unintended consequence of a garden bursting with so many varieties of yellow floral delight. My dear (and oft-documented) tree-like sunflowers created a lot of shade. All of the neighboring flowers and vegetables tried their best to thrive underneath them, but they couldn’t reach their full potential.
This is a rookie gardening mistake, no doubt, and I am a rookie, so it makes sense that this would end up being another of this growing season’s many learnings. Note to self: next year, plot out the garden in a way that gives all of the plants access to the right amount of light.
When I stuck all the little seeds into squares of dirt inside black, plastic trays on Good Friday, I figured I’d just be able to intuit where to place the plants when it was time. By late May and early June when all the plants went into the ground, everything was still pretty small. It seemed nearly impossible that any of the plants would ever be competing for light or water. They all looked tiny and quite spread apart.
But plants grow.
By early July, the zucchini and cucumbers were getting crowded by the squash which were seemingly taking over the entire neighborhood. The sunflowers were growing expeditiously. I found them so mesmerizing I didn’t notice the slowed growth of everything around them. I assumed it was just natural for those plants to slow down.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with beautiful, enormous sunflowers and all their many varieties. But this year has taught me that I do need to pay attention to where I plant them. I understand now that just because there’s room for a sea of 3-inch baby sunflowers to go into the ground in May, doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s going to be enough space for a sea of 14-foot sunflowers a few months later.
Most of the summer was very dry. When it did start to rain, the sunflowers started to tip completely over. Most of them were drying by that point, and their big faces were drooping low. I pulled the last few down a few weeks back and put them in a sunflower cemetery at the edge of the yard. The garden looked so bare and sad without them. I missed my giant companions with their surprisingly huge trunk-like stems.
Then, as the days passed, something unexpected happened. The eggplant started to grow taller and wider. They became filled with flowers ready to become fruit. The mint, which had been sparse all season, began to spread. The modest sage plant morphed into something like a sage shrub. The plants who had lived in the shade of the sunflowers were growing!
I don’t have much experience with flowers, but last spring I thought I’d try to start some snapdragons in trays with the other vegetables. They sprouted with everything else, and I put them in the raised bed with the herbs. They grew very slowly and then came to a screeching halt. The row of sunflowers planted behind them created a significant shadow.
For many months, the snapdragons had almost no sunlight at all. This morning, as I watered them, I noticed they were looking especially green and lush. A few are even blooming, and it looks like more flowers are on the way.
It’s a late-September surprise. The snapdragons never gave up. They were just waiting for a little light.
Emily Carson is a Lutheran pastor. Visit her website, emilyannecarson.com.
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September 25, 2021 at 10:20PM
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