(For more description on #thingofbeautyalong, please refer to this post.)
I cannot help myself. These prolific Maximillian Sunflowers deserve another post.
Like clockwork, every year they surprise me with their tremendous growth and unfortunate timing. I planted some seeds a few years ago, have given starts to multiple neighbors and friends, and yet every year they multiply by the hundreds. They grow all summer long, slowly and yet aggressively, without any additional water beyond the infrequent rain they receive during the arid Utah summers. They grow to heights that reach well over seven feet tall, with twenty to thirty blooms per stalk, often growing so tall and full with blooms that their stalks can’t handle their own weight, causing them to flump over pathetically.
I always feel sorry for them, blooming so big and so late. It’s almost like they’ve put so much energy into impressively growing that they’re late to their own party. By the time they bloom, it’s usually well-past anything else blooming in the garden, leaves are falling, and most years they burst open right before wind, hail, rain, or snow prematurely end their season.
Of course, this makes me love them, too. I love that they seem to spend a summer of effort in order to be my garden’s masterpiece, and yet if they just didn’t need to grow quite so big or develop quite so many blooms, they could bloom earlier and last longer.
But that’s not the way of the Maximillian Sunflower. So I will just continue to love these giants for as long as they last each year.