With Mother’s Day just around the corner, it is time to sow Sallie’s seeds.
Plants such as sunflowers must be put into the ground when the last vestige’s of the season’s frost have been melted away. These plants thrive in the warmth and their namesake sun but will not flourish if it remains chilly. Attending to this wonderful task is easy. Placing the holes at least six feet apart, dig about an inch down into your soil. Place one seed in each hole, cover them with soil, and lightly water them. It will amaze you that your seeds, relatively large as far as seeds go but still quite small, will sprout into plants that tower over your head and have lovely, green leaves. Later in the season, you will have big, happy, luscious blossoms that will brighten up any day and be the pride of your garden. Because sunflowers are not perennials, they will last only for the summer season, but remember that now, in the lovely, warm, light spring, you are planting the seeds for a great and bountiful harvest, just as Sunflowers for Sallie does each year.
It is love that our sunflowers represent, and in giving it, sharing it, and enjoying it, we form it into a chain, a circle, that is ongoing like the seasons and the cycles of planting and harvesting. If we nourish our sunflowers with tenderness, if we give them ample water and light, they will bloom gloriously, and in the lovely, mellow days of autumn, we can harvest their plentiful seeds. In the same way, if we treasure those we love, if we offer it to those who most need it, and if we treasure it as it deserves, then our days will be rich with a harvest as beautiful as vases of sunflowers. When we offer our Baskets of Hope to those in need, we cultivate our flowers, spread them to new gardens, and allow others around us to live in their bounty as they pass it along to everyone around them.
We wish you a wonderful Mother’s Day and that the planting, growing, and enjoyment of your sunflowers of love leaves your hearts full and your summers bright.