Sunflowers are enchanting

A few years ago, a friend invited me to her garden. I was to help her pick and she would share whatever I desired to take away from our joint labor. I'm from the north, ME and RI originally, and I was at that time recently relocated here. I was unfamiliar with the long growing season and the variety of goods one can coax from the Georgia ground. Even though sunflowers can be grown in ME, I had never seen them.

The surprise of her garden, to me, were the sunflowers. I loved seeing the tall giants and bright petals. I took some photos, but later regretted I had not taken enough. I wanted to bask among them while I was there but also wanted to view photos of them from every angle later.

Sunflowers entranced Van Gogh too. Wikipedia records this,

Van Gogh began painting in late summer 1888 and continued into the following year. One went to decorate his friend Paul Gauguin's bedroom. The paintings show sunflowers in all stages of life, from full bloom to withering. The paintings were considered innovative for their use of the yellow spectrum, partly because newly invented pigments made new colours possible.

Van Gogh wanted to paint "big flowers" He said,

The peony is Jeannin's, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is somewhat my own.

I understand the attraction. They are majestic flowers, and the yellow is bright and happy. Here are a few photos of that day in the garden.

I'm excited to have planned a trip with a friend to a sunflower farm in early October! I plan to take LOTS of photos! From the Farm's website photos of the sunflower garden, it seem they have a species that's a bit shorter than these 16 foot mountainous blooms I'd visited some years ago, so it will be a fun day exploring a new type of sunflower.

Fall is a great time of year in Georgia. :)