23.7.10

On Volunteer Sunflowers

I love a volunteer plant: always unexpected, willing to grow anywhere, slowly unfolding its mysteries. 

Some of my fondest volunteers have included the pin oak sapling growing in the perennial bed, poke weed with its deep aubergine berry clusters, and yellow sunflowers.

Each year, the area beneath and adjacent to the purple plum tree is filled with volunteer sunflowers; sprouting from seeds which have spilled from the various birdfeeders.

I do not know the varieties growing therein, flowing like musical notes within a stanza, reaching toward the sun as it passes along the imaginary line that is east to west.  Yet, I enjoy their unfolding beauty, bright morning faces and the interwoven relationship between flower and pollen-ladened pollinator.  Golden flower and golden finch; clinging upside down, cracking the oil-rich, black-shelled seeds with their snubbed, orange beaks.





















6 comments:

  1. Your photos are stunning, Kareen! I love some volunteer plants, and pretty sunflowers would be one I would welcome. We get them from time to time around our birdfeeder. Have a great wknd!
    Beth

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  2. Really love your photos. They may be volunteers but they are inspiring!

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  3. Pretty sunflowers! Nice that it was a volunteer!

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  4. I Love your photos...very beautiful. Sunflowers are my favorite...my whole kitchen is decorated in them! Seeing your Sunflower photos just made my day a bright one! Thanks!!!

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  5. I Love your photos...very beautiful.
    Ron Gallemore Los Angeles

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  6. Sunflowers are my favorite...my whole kitchen is decorated in them! Seeing your Sunflower photos just made my day a bright one!
    landscaping american fork ut

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