I’ve always enjoyed watching sunflowers at different times of the day. It’s interesting how they move, toward the sun when it’s bright and inward when it’s not. Until reading this Thursday Thought quote, though, I didn’t understand that they were teaching us something.
A Wisconsin man wanted to honor the wife he lost to a 9-year battle with cancer, and he wanted that honor to reflect the beauty she left behind in his heart. She loved all flowers, especially sunflowers. He recalled the field of sunflowers they had grown together 4 years before, and he created a 60′ x 4 1/2 mile field of sunflowers in her memory. It spans 5 farms–neighbors rented him their land for whatever price he felt was fair.
But there’s more. The seeds will be collected and sold to raise money for other cancer patients and their families–they’re calling it “Babbette’s Seeds of Hope,” after Don Jaquish’s wife.
Read more at KREM.COM.
Your bee-friendly plants may be killing bees. According to a report from Friends of the Earth and the Pesticide Research Institute, some of those plants (like sunflowers) that you thought were bee-friendly have been treated–before they reach Lowe’s, Home Depot, and other garden centers–with pesticides that harm bees. The EPA’s new rules ban use of certain pesticides (those that contain imidacloprid, dinotefuran, clothianidin and thiamethoxam) where bees are present. But that doesn’t ensure that those lovely plants have not been infused with the stuff before they hit your store.
For more information, read the NBC Science News article “Bee-killing pesticide found in garden store plants: What does it mean?”
When you shop for plants for your garden, read their labels and ask if the plants have been treated with nerve-killing pesticides that harm and kill bees. If the answer is Yes, or if they don’t know, tell them you’ll shop elsewhere until they can assure you that their plants are not harmful.