Accidental Gardening, Part II

Originally published at Jacqueline West. You can comment here or there.

We didn’t plant this.

 

Last year there were the pavement pumpkins, sprouting from the compost bin and stretching their massive vines across the driveway.  This year we have the stowaway sunflower.

I noticed the stem when it was already a few feet high–all right, I’m not a good weeder–poking up from our front flowerbed. ‘That looks like a sunflower,’ I thought, and didn’t weed it.  It grew taller and taller, unfurling leaf after leaf  until we both started to believe it might spike up into the clouds and become a fire pole for golden goose thieves and angry giants.  When it reached 12 feet or so, it finally opened its (slightly wonky, but cheerful) yellow face.

I suppose the seed was dropped or buried by some forgetful little animal, but I prefer to imagine that it was planted by a squirrel with a horticultural bent– one who visits people’s flowerbeds, decides where there should be a splash of color or a burst of foliage, pats a few seeds into place, and moves on.

For other things that make me happy, see this review in Beyond Books: http://beyondbooks.ca/?p=5427