Sunflowers in my garden

The birds and the bees are quite happy with my blooming sunflowers.

Sunflowers are the symbol for nuclear disarmament.

Sunflowers also are what environmental scientists call hyper-accumulators -- plants that have the ability to take up high concentrations of toxic materials in their tissues.

After the Hiroshima, Fukushima, and Chernobyl nuclear disasters, fields of sunflowers were planted across the affected landscapes to help absorb toxic metals and radiation from the soil. New research now suggests that sunflowers (Helianthus) might be as good for the environment as they are pretty to look at.

Here is what the same spot looked like just six months ago.

This is why Mainers love to garden. After a long hard winter folks here want to see some flowers. Though the snow is wonderful and beautiful in its own right - the multitude of colors, smells and tastes from the garden make spring and summer special here.

Mainers joke that we have only two seasons in our state. The first is winter and the other is called 'road repair' season.

I must say that our summer so far has been quite crazy. First real hot and hardly any rain at all - Maine has been experiencing drought conditions. Then during the past two weeks we've had lots of rain - one storm partially flooded our basement. So there is no doubt that climate crisis is creating more unpredictable and extreme weather shifts.

Bruce