Along with the arugula and garden cress, the local workers at Contingency Operating Base Basrah gave me some sunflower seeds in exchange for some snap pea seeds I gave them. I planted this variety in 2010 and attempted to save seeds. Unfortunately, weevils got to most of the flower and I was only able to salvage a few viable seeds. I planted the four or five seeds I had saved this year. Two came up and a rabbit ate one seedling. Below is my sole plant this year. A groundhog ended up snapping the flower off before maturity but I luckily found about 5 or 6 more of the original seeds I was given in 2010.
It is a smallish plant as far as sunflowers go, about 3 feet tall. If the
weevils groundhogs don't get to the flower this year (they did), I am going to distribute a small number of seeds. I cant help but find symbolism in coincidence. Sunflowers face east when they mature, towards the rising sun. In the last days of the American military involvement in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom became Operation New Dawn. This flower looks east both to its home 7,000 miles away and the new dawn.
