THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408050232
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
In the spring, I saw a T-shirt with a big yellow sunflower on it at a local gift shop. I thought it was wonderful and bought it, never knowing that I was buying into a sunflower craze.
Soon thereafter, a friend gave me a bunch of sunflowers for the house. They were the small sunflowers, ones about the size in the familiar Van Gogh painting. I was entranced.
That was the first time I knew that smaller sunflowers were readily available for someone like me to simply put in a bowl. Each flower is so appealing that arranging them required nothing more than sticking the whole bunch in a vase of water.
Then suddenly my table was a Van Gogh. Each flower was distinct in the way its blossom dipped and held a few unruly petals like wayward curls in an otherwise perfect head of hair. Yet as a whole, the brilliant yellow flowers took over the dining room, literally a shining sun on a drab April day.
Now I see sunflower motifs all over the place. Manufacturers are featuring sunflowers on most anything from napkin rings to place mats, door mats, rugs, and, of course, T-shirts.
But I like the real thing best and I see a lot of them these days, too. When I drive around town, I've begun to notice more and more sunflower heads nodding over backyard fences along the way and more and more, giant lone sunflowers standing sentinel in folks' front yards.
The sunflower craze was ``in'' in New York a couple of years ago, said Lynn Hudgins who owns Stoney's Produce on First Colonial Road with her husband. Friends would come home from New York and tell her they saw vendors selling sunflowers on the street corners. A couple of years ago, the Hudginses started growing their own in their First Colonial Road fields.
``My husband planted them because he liked them,'' Hudgins said, ``never really dreaming that people would buy them out of the field.''
But this year they sure did. The Hudginses sold just about every sunflower they had. Customers bought them for their houses, for their girlfriends, for friends in the hospital down the road and even for a grave site, she said. Now the Hudginses have planted another crop in hopes of having sunflowers through the fall.
Before this year, customers did purchase their sunflowers but mainly in the fall, when the flowers had gone to seed, Hudgins said. They would set the big disk of drying sunflower seeds out in their yards, like a gourmet platter for the birds.
(If you want to dry sunflowers and feed the seeds to the birds from your feeder, Virginia Beach Horticultural Extension Agent Randy Jackson suggests putting the heads in large grocery bags and hanging them up to dry in the garage.)
Sunflowers are native to the Midwest and Kansas is known as the ``Sunflower State.'' Early Spanish explorers took the seeds home to Europe where the big yellow globes became popular as ornamental flowers, inspiring Van Gogh and others.
Sunflowers are members of the genus Helianthus and come by their common name legitimately because Helianthus comes from ``helios,'' the Greek for sun. They are relatives of other brilliantly colored, sun loving flowers like marigolds and zinnias.
Like marigold and zinnias, sunflowers will grow well in this area too, said Gloria Winiker, a Virginia Beach master gardener. As a volunteer, she manages the Annual Trial Garden at the Hampton Roads Agricultural Experiment Station where they have been testing various new sunflower varieties for national seed companies.
In the past four years, the master gardeners have grown sunflowers, ranging in size from 1 1/2 feet to 10 feet tall and from 4 inches to more than a foot across. Varieties are being developed in a range of colors too.
``Last year we had one that was really quite red,'' Winiker said. ``They are coming in whites, reds and yellows, with even a rosy lavender look. The Italian white, about 4 inches across, is quite pretty.''
This year the master gardeners have planted three new varieties in the station's trial garden. The flowers aren't blooming yet, but should be in full bloom before the end of the month.
Stop by the garden at 1444 Diamond Springs Road and take a look, Winiker said. There's a spot where you can pull off the road and park. You don't even have to drive into the agricultural experiment station itself. If you do, though, feel free to walk around and see all the other new varieties of old familiar flowers they are testing in the annual garden, too.
Basically sunflowers need good sun and good moisture, Winiker said. They grow quickly from seed to flower in about six weeks so there's no need to sow them early in the year. In fact, it's possible to grow two crops in this climate.
``They're great for children,'' she said, ``They grow so fast, kind of like `Jack and the Beanstalk.' ''
And they seem to bring the child out in me, too.
P.S. HOME FROM THE SEA is the topic of the family program from 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, at historic Francis Land House. Children can visit with a 19th century sailor and hear music from the sea.
Children must be accompanied by an adult and the program is free with admission to the house.
GOOD JOB, WELL DONE, an exhibit of photos and posters honoring the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, is on display through Aug. 21 at the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia.
The institution is the British all-volunteer life-saving service. Call 422-1587 for more information. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Master gardeners grow sunflowers, ranging in size from 1 1/2 feet to
10 feet tall and from 4 inches to more than a foot across, in a
variety of colors.
by CNB