Transplanting Sunflowers
and praying for everyday miracles
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Last April, for Clara’s 6th birthday, she asked for her own garden.
“Yes!” I said, perhaps too eagerly, hoping she wouldn’t waffle back to her request for a Karaoke microphone. When she had asked for the microphone, I made some sort of non-committal noise or changed the subject, biding my time for a better request.
We can call this what it was: straight-up motherpulation (this is a new word I’ve invented combining mothering with manipulation). Anyhow, I imagine I’m not the only mom who occasionally bends a scenario to my will, providing choice from within my highly curated set of options.
So the garden went in.
Clara loves it.
Among many things, we planted sunflowers, including one giant sunflower.
By August, the sunflowers had grown to two-and-a-half Clara-heights. I thought about the gentle children’s book, Up to My Knees
I thought about growing up in Wisconsin listening to the farmers’ wisdom for corn, “knee high by the 4th of July.” Those sayings both roll off the tongue a bit easier than than two-and-a-half-Clara-heights-in-four-months. But that’s what happened.
We harvested the giant sunflower’s seeds back in early September, but evidently not before some of the other sunflowers had dropped lots of seeds in Clara’s garden bed.
Sidenote: harvesting sunflower seeds was so cool! Look at how big it was (Clara’s body for a sense of scale ;).
When we replanted her garden later in September, sunflowers and African vegetables – Terere (Amaranth) and Managu (a member of the Nightshade family) – had taken over the whole bed save one successful cucumber plant, something we think is fennel, and two different gourds – Birdhouse and Cucuzzi – that Clara chose because they looked funny.
To recreate the possibility of growing some other veggies, we decided to transplant the sunflowers to more decorative spaces in our yard.
Last weekend, we finally did this. I used a spade to pull up the most viable-looking sunflowers for relocation. With each plant I unearthed, Clara walked over, supported the flower by holding his roots in one hand and stem with the other. She placed each sunflower in a hole, filled it in with soil, and then packed it down firmly into place. With some of the taller flowers, I had to hold them upright while she did this.
When we finished transplanting the 12 sunflowers (maybe actually 14 because we uprooted and relocated a few “two-fers”), we watered them and paused for lunch. Afterwards, we planned to make any adjustments, weed the rest of her garden, and put away our gardening tools.
But when we finished lunch, Clara was brooding. Sad. Withdrawn. We had had such a fun time transplanting the flowers and then this.
It was a hot day – maybe 80 degrees F – and the sun was out in full force. I felt a bit droopy.
I asked Clara if she was ready to finish our project. She told me I could weed the garden myself. She gave me the silent treatment and turned away.
I spoke to her back, “It’s ok if you don’t want to finish the project now, but I’m not going to work in your garden without you. I’ll just put away my tools.”
I put my gardening gloves and spade with our other gardening supplies.
As I walked away to carry on with my to-do list, I looked at the sunflowers in their new homes. Baking. Listless. Wilting.
My heart felt heavy.
All they need is a little bit of water, coolth, and time and they’ll perk right back up, I told myself. I’ve transplanted enough seedlings to trust this process on a rational level.
Emotionally, it still seems like a miracle every time it works.
I walked around our house tidying, giving Clara some space.
A while later, she came and found me and hugged my leg, rubbing snot on my thigh as she buried her face in my skin.
“I’m sorry Mama,” she said softly.
“Are you worried about the sunflowers?” I asked her.
She nodded and her eyes filled with tears.
“They just need some time and care and water and a break from the sun and most of them will perk right back up,” I reassured her as I prayed for it to be true.
Then it rained last night. When I looked at the sunflowers this morning, sure enough, a miracle.
❤️,
B