Jenn Doing My Best

In the springtime, Travis and I discovered volunteer sunflower sprouts growing in between the sidewalk.

I’m pretty sure the sunflower seeds were left behind in the wintertime by the birds and squirrels when I put up bird feeders.

So, we gently moved the sunflower sprouts to our garden bed.

We managed to “rescue” six of the eight sunflower sprouts we found in the sidewalk. All six of the sprouts recovered from transplant shock and grew strong and tall.

But as many gardeners know, sunflower stems can still be fragile, especially during storms or when pesky squirrels are rummaging through your garden. 😏🐿

The beautiful thing about sunflowers, though, is that they are resilient plants.

Despite nature’s challenges, sunflowers will try very hard to keep growing, even when broken. Sometimes they just need a little help.

This is something I have learned this gardening season.

I was able to save one broken sunflower plant by trimming down the stem and placing it in a vase of water.

The sunflower still bloomed, and the bees loved it!

Another sunflower plant with a broken stem (thanks squirrel! 🐿😏) Travis was able to make a stick-based cast for it.

And the other day, that sunflower bud still bloomed!

It makes me happy that even though a couple of our sunflowers experienced hardships, we were still able to give the flowers a chance to complete their life cycle. 🌻😍

Despite being broken, the sunflowers served a great purpose by attracting the bees to our garden to pollinate our food plants (like our peppers 🫑 and tomatoes 🍅).

And perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from broken sunflowers that keep blooming anyway. 😉🌻🙏🏽

💜 XO

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