I never expected it to live to a very ripe age. In fact, the instructions on the seed packet said to plant in Spring-Summer... so I planted in Autumn-Winter. Just to see what would happen.
I was so happy when it developed a flower!! It was amazing to watch my little sproutling grow up and up and up....
Then one day, while pulling back the curtains (the pot was on the window sill) then unthinkable happened. I tugged too hard and the curtain snapped my little flower in half. I was so sad, I thought it was gunna die, and such a horrid way too. It was bent right in half. Then I noticed that the skin wasn't broken!! And I thought.... it could set itself right if I just got it standing back up again. So I sellotaped it, like a bandage, and it lived. I was so proud of my little flower... surviving in the face of adversity and menacing curtains.
Unfortunately, the age-old saying "if things get wet they will go mouldy" comes into effect at this stage of the story.
My little flower died of mould poisoning.
The position of our place means that we get no winter sun aside from about 2 inches on the same window sill my flower was sitting on, which is why it was there. But the sun is weak, and doesn't shine for very long- and my sunflower didn't get its name from Korea. It simply wasn't enough to dry out the condensation and moisture that built up on the window every day. Moisture that was passed onto my sun-loving bloom.
I would trim the leaves when I noticed they looked mould-tinged, but my efforts were in vain. Finally, one day, I looked at my flower and saw that the deadly fungus had reached the petals themselves.
My flower lead a happy life, despite being slowly killed from the outside by fungus spores and forced to live in conditions it just wasn't made for. I am proud that it grew at all, and then lived for as long as it did. The short amount of time that it took for death to come to my flower means nothing- rather, the fact that it lived at all remains a testament to not only myself but to anyone anywhere wanting to do anything in the face of logical, factual, and rational opposition.
I grew a sunflower in Winter. And it lived.
In honour of my flower, I have developed a short photo montage:
A Life Well Lived:
My Little Sproutling- full of Youth and Exuberance
The Golden Years. The Flower that Saw The Sun.
Rest In Peace.
(I find it ironic that the window looks like it is crying here- it was that same window and the moisture on it that killed the poor little flower. Too little too late!!)
