My sunflowers are officially done for the 2025 season- and what a season it was! I have written one post about the story of my sunflower field, but in the spirit of being a good blogger, I wanted to recap this sunflower season.
2024 Sunflower field (first successful year!)
Life Lessons from the Sunflower Field
This Throwback to the first time I ever planted sunflowers- and they grew taller than the house!
On May 14, 2025 we planted 9 rows of sunflowers. In total, we probably planted 4000 seeds. Our method of planting was quite simple- Theo put up a line to measure straight rows. I walked along the line and scattered seeds directly on the ground. Theo followed directly behind me with a bucket of soil/compost and scattered a thin layer of soil on the seeds.
I took these pictures of the kids, thinking that I would take photos every month or so to show the growth of the sunflower field. Spoiler alert: I did not. At all.
On May 26 (our 13th wedding anniversary!), I spotted my first seedlings popping out of the ground!
June is where things started to take a turn. It RAINED so much that month, and it was honestly pretty chilly the whole time! Our whole property was overtaken with weeds, including the sunflower field. I tried to weed a little bit every day, and I went out with hedge clippers and garden scissors, because it was hopeless to try to pull it all out by the roots. I knew that if the sunflowers could just grow taller than the weeds, they would be able to grow, but I slowly gave up on fighting that battle.
And then….the great flood. We had a flash flood run through our property- we actually had 3 different ones, but only one that did much damage. My entire sunflower field was under several feet of water – probably only for an hour or two- but I was pretty sure it was all a loss.
And after that? I gave up. I didn’t even go out to the sunflower field. Every time I tried to walk over there I would cry at the messy tangle of weeds and discouragement. We had a lot going on in our personal lives as well, and I felt like I was a chaotic mess of failure all summer long, so seeing the abysmal failure of my sunflower field just added to that feeling.
And then on July 26, as I was mowing- I looked over and gasped out loud. A sunflower! Multiple sunflowers! BLOOMS! I was SO shocked to see them.
And, then…they bloomed. All of them. Ok, not 4000 sunflower blooms…but I had at least 1000. They bloomed from July 26 until September 20th.
Walking through my weedy, overgrown, BLOOMING sunflower field was one of my absolute favorite things to do this summer!
And for the first time this year I hosted a flower arranging party- two, actually! At first I looked into hiring someone to teach us how to do it, but that didn’t pan out due to price, commitment level, and the person who taught it wanted to bring a lot of wholesale flowers, which I felt defeated the point of picking our own homegrown ones. But I am hoping that next year with a little bit more organization, I can offer a paid professional class and a free pick-your-own and make your own class again.
I am so thankful for this little piece of heaven on earth, and I am so thankful that despite all my inadequacies, my sunflower field still bloomed and grew and gave me an abundance of blooms.
It’s always sad to see the sunflowers go, but I’m already thinking and dreaming about my 2026 sunflower field!