Sunflower Seedlings Succeeding

I must admit, I was a little incredulous that the seeds I shoved crudely into hurriedly spoon-dug holes in our lawn would actually grow. Z1 seems to have mostly forgotten about the project despite her detailed and meticulous plans but I have been regularly checking the small, barely uncovered earth patches in our rapidly growing grass.

I am pleased to report that at least two of the seeds seem to be succeeding in growing. Now, I am aware that two seedlings does not a sunflower circle fort make but there was lots of rain last night and lots of sun forecast today so we might get a few more.

Diagrams and digging

The idea of planting a circle of sunflowers as a sort of shady den for the summer came from Pinterest though I had seen and loved a sunflower maze in Dublin Botanic Gardens and loved it. It just hadn't occurred to me to translate it to my very own garden until Pinterest.

I had spoken about it quite a lot and the Zeds and I tramped out the circle in the long grass on Saturday. Husband then cut the grass so we got to tramp it out again which was a good thing as the Zeds are big fans of running, skipping, marching and jumping around in a circle. I got a bit dizzy.

Z1 then took it upon herself to draw a diagram to plan the circle out. We currently only have a temporary fence on one side of the garden so crayon drawings are allowed. The parameters she planned to illustrate were the size of the circle and the height of the sunflowers. She also had a separate table where she planned how often the sunflowers would need watering. Apparently they will require watering 6 times on Mondays. This was a very serious project.


On the right, you can see that the upper circle has a tick and an arrow - this is the required size of the sunflower circle. It also has 2 flowers in the middle which show the location of the circle as there are two orange flowers on our lawn. The circle below has been crossed out as too small.

In this diagram, you can see the height she wants the sunflowers to be (8 units, units not specified) and, in the righthand panel, you can see she drew a picture of herself for comparison. As she is about 3 feet tall and the sunflowers can apparently grow up to 10ft tall, she may get her wish of the sunflowers being twice her height as illustrated.

We had misplaced our trowel when the time came to plant the seeds so we made do with a spoon. Z2 was napping and Z1 took charge of choosing the seed for each hole and watering each seed after planting. Now we must wait and see if they grow or wether the birds ate the seeds immediately after we planted them.
 

Stopping to watch the woodlice

In the mornings, we have a short walk to the bus stop. Well, it should be short but we have a five year old and a nearly three year old so the walk that takes an adult nine minutes (according to googlemaps) can take up to half an hour with the Zeds.



I find myself enticing them to walk a bit quicker by saying "Come on, I think there are more woodlice across the road" and "ooh, let's see if there are any dead worms up there, near the wobbly wall". In winter, it tended to be more about finding a really good crunchy iced over puddle or a crystally icicle.



 


It's the preschooler/kindergardener equivalent to stopping to smell the flowers, you see,  and I try to encourage it in general but, you know, sometimes we really do need to hurry up and get on the damn bus. However, I do like to stop and smell photograph the flowers.

No children were harmed in the making of this craft

First you must cut out your fishies

No children were harmed, indeed, since no children were involved. Between Pinterest and this blog, I have moved on from merely saving cereal boxes for future use to sitting down at the table while Z2 napped and Z1 watched...erm...probably Gnomeo and Juliet, not too sure as I was busy...to do a crafty thing.



Then you must glue your silhouttes
to the background

Z2's bedroom is painted blue, glossy blue, walls and ceiling. It makes it rather dark but I have decided to go with it and I call it the pond room and he has some mirrors in the shape of frogs on the wall and also this rug which I do love quite a lot. I decided he needed a shark poster which gradually evolved into me making these fish silhouettes.


This craft was a nice mix of being prepared and just making do with whatever I had to hand. Preparation included printing out the fish silhouettes. Making do included using a black marker to colour in the watermark bits as the silhouettes were from a stock picture library type thing. I also had carried them around in my bag for a few days so had to choose the non-crumpled fish to use. The frames were ones that I found about the house and the blue backgrounds are a blue card and a blue envelope which I also found around the house.



Then you must display them with Z1's flower display
and a piece of her art in the background*

I am quite pleased with the finished results. Z1 was impressed and Z2 admired them. However, they are rather small for the expanse of bedroom wall so I may have to get my scissors out, find a few more frames and  do a few more. Or I might just buy the shark poster after all and hang these on either side.

*If you do not have any original Z1 artwork or flower displays to hand, you can improvise with art and flower displays created by yourself, your own child/dog/hamster or even shop-bought displays.