Always walk on the sunny side of the street.

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
It is what sunflowers do" -Helen Keller

• Sure, the world is full of trouble. But, as long as we have people undoing trouble, we have a pretty good world.

• The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

• Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

- Helen Keller

Sunflowers to the Rescue!

by Sherie Blumenthal | Monday, June 11th, 2012 | From: Home and Garden

 

Helen Keller knew enough about the wisdom of this bright and beautiful plant to share it with others. While she understood and celebrated the sunflower’s ability to follow the movement of the sun, she could not have known of its power to cleanse the earth. Thanks to the wonders of science, we do now, and it is a beautiful and useful wisdom!

The sunflower, or Helianthus annuus, from the Greek helios, meaning “Sun,” is a powerful plant in the world of industry and art. There are few people in the world who would be unable to recognize its shining yellow face in a garden or field. This bright, cheerful flower has given us a delicious and hardy seed, a versatile cooking oil, leaves for cattle feed, a stem strong enough to make paper, and of course, much beauty. It has also, as of late, brought us something even more special: the ability to remove harmful toxins from our soil, helping us to more safely handle the earth around us and grow food for ourselves and our communities.

The sunflower is one of many plants that are now known to aid in “phytoremediation,” a process that employs various types of plants to remove, transfer, stabilize, and/or destroy contaminants in the our soil, water and air. Compared to other cleanup methods, such as soil excavation or pumping polluted groundwater, phytoremediation has become a clean, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly way to reclaim and reuse land that has been tainted by poisonous chemicals and heavy metals.

 

Sunflowers are not only able to absorb lead, but other dangerous heavy metals such as arsenic, zinc, chromium, copper, and manganese. Probably the most astounding example of phytoremediation was the use of a type of sunflower to clean up contaminated soil in the Ukraine following the Chernobyl disaster, one of the worst nuclear power plant accidents in history. 

Other communities from far and wide have learned about and employed the magic healing of sunflowers. “Project Sprout,” based out of Tulane City Center in New Orleans, focuses on planting bio-energy gardens that include plants like sunflowers as a way to remediate soil, yield a crop for bio-fuel production, provide green-collar job training and to support urban revitalization in neighborhoods of New Orleans that suffered devastating damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Sunflowers have an amazing capacity to not only transform the health of a space in your community, but also add beauty.

If you’re looking to clean up your soil, or just want to enjoy the beauty of these flowers in your garden, here are some great varieties to try:

Soraya – a nice bright orange sunflower that grows to about 6 feet with a single stem.

Ring of Fire – a multicolored starbust sunflower that’s around 3 to 4 feet tall.

Russian Mammoth – a beautiful yellow flower that can grow to be 8 feet tall!

Velvet Queen – red and orange with burgundy undertones and grows to an average of 5 feet.

 Source:

 http://www.farmersalmanac.com/home-garden/2012/06/11/sunflowers-to-the-rescue/

 

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Having just purchased a couple of these flowers at the local plant vendor, it seemed wise to go to an expert to learn how to care for this plant.

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More Helen Keller:

 Courage
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Confidence
Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.

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