August 25, 2011---quite a flower!

I was walking to the cabin with this sunflower in my hand when John saw me and commented, "That's quite a flower." I'll say! In preparation for hurricane Irene, I was cutting the heaviest flowerheads off some of the sunflowers (in hopes of preventing them from getting blown over), and this one I cut with a long enough stem to put it in a vase. It's such a great looking flower---all shaggy and sort of mischievously misshapen. From a tall, tall plant--maybe 8 feet tall. The flower is so big and so heavy I had to find a way to give it some support in the vase--to keep it from nodding over. Tree people are here today pruning our trees and there is dead wood on the ground all over the place, so it was easy to find a stick about 3/4 inch in diameter that had a crotch in just the right place. Nestled it under the flower head and, voila, huge upright sunflower blossom. Makes me happy just to look at it. AND it's in a great vase my daughter made in high school. It has petal-like decorations on it that give it just enough texture, but not too much, to suit the sunflower.