Splints, Scotch tape, and a very determined sunflower on 1st Avenue

Text by Donald Davis 

Photos by Kelley Ryan 

Following is an update we never thought would happen regarding sunflower behavior in the fenced yard of a local public elementary school, PS 19. 

This year, there were two distinct plantings, one in early March, a foot away from the sidewalk, and the other in late April, adjacent to the building at the corner of 11th Street and First Avenue.

Approximately 16 of the March seeds germinated into seedlings, most of which were lost early due to various environmental and human factors. 

In the past, these sidewalk-facing flowers grew eight or nine feet tall. This year was different. Four plants made it, with some assistance, to a foot and a half. They seemed unable to grow further. The leaves were mottled, possibly due to a toxin, perhaps natural or from the street (also, burrowing rats will destroy seedlings and mottle developing leaves). 

Eventually, the plants adjacent to the building grew quite tall and bore beautiful flowers, most of which were gone by July or August. If you walked by there, you may have noticed these very large sunflower stalks lying on the ground with healthy flowers attached. 

They had grown too close to the building and were unable to maintain themselves upright. In the background of one of our pictures, you can see the remnants of a skinny one still erect against the side of the school, bearing a scrap of dead flower. 

Sometime in May, the stunted sidewalk plants also encountered a trauma issue, perhaps human-induced. Two of them snapped mid-stalk at 90-degree angles. We used a method of repair we have perfected over the years: chopsticks and scotch tape (one piece above and one below the break, and a third right across the wound). 

This works if at least 60% of the fibers are still intact. One of the photos shows our splints during this spring repair. 

We would periodically check in on the issue, noting that these mottled leaf dwarfs had not grown, certainly not tall enough to bud and flower. The beautiful garden grew around, and the birds in the famous sparrow tree sang out. Our observations tapered around the time school resumed in August.

Meanwhile, sunflowers over the East Village have come and gone (unfortunately, many were picked by whomever, though for the most part, the season ran out). 

All that remains of the beautiful sunflower garden on the Seventh Street and First Avenue traffic island is a few buttercups and Black-eyed Susans. In our own garden at 97 Saint Mark's Place, we are looking forward to winter and have planted hairy vetch, a cold-resistant commercial agricultural cover crop that takes nitrogen from the air and adds it to the soil. 

Sunflowers will thrive in this healthier soil in the spring. In the schoolyard, momentousness has taken over. Walking past earlier this month, we discovered that one of our splinted adoptees has decided that life is very beautiful. At some recent point, the plant endeavored not to take stunting for an answer, and to give senescence a real battle. 

It has, seemingly out of nowhere, out of season, grown as tall as the people walking past. It has not only opened a bright flower, but also invited the bees back for a final dusting of pollen. 

You can see the location of the splinted wound site at the base of its thick stalk. This is a large knot that marks a change in direction of growth (the natural process of plant orientation combined with some missing fibers due to the wound). 

What is nearly as incredible comes from humanity. Last May or so, one of the schoolchildren drew a sign for the garden and placed it at this exact spot on the fence. 

By remarkable providence, the sign asks PLEASE DON'T PICK THE FLOWERS. It is the only remaining sign of all the ones the children made. 

Wall plaques in museums are often not installed with such precision — this flower museum, this wonder of nature.