Stick it where the sun doesn't shine

Ploggers, it's no shock to any of you who have either followed the sunflower saga, or else have ever purchased a houseplant for me, to learn I do not have green fingers. Lilies lay listless, crocuses croak and pansies pass away.

And the sunflowers. Oh the sunflowers.

So, excited to have a new garden this year, in February I bought some sunflower seeds. The main reason I chose sunflowers for my foray into gardening was it said on the packet they were suitable for small children and very easy to grow. This suited me perfectly. We'd had a cold winter, and the packet said they needed to be planted in warm soil, so I waited like an overexcited child waits for Christmas. Except, I was waiting for spring. Not Christmas. Even I know that's a bad time to plant sunflowers.

By April I could contain myself no longer and planted the seeds indoors in pots. It was a miracle! Within two or three days they began to sprout. I propped them up, firstly with lollipop seeds, and later, Mrs Nunn brought some canes for me. I was so excited.

Then in May I was due to go away on holiday for a week. This posed a problem. Did I a) plant the sunflowers outside or b) leave them indoors? I dithered. And dithered some more. And eventually decided to plant half of them outdoors and leave half inside.

When I came back from my hols, all of the indoor sunflowers had died. I may have cried a little bit. Worse still, most of the outdoor plants had disappeared entirely. The work of slugs, apparently, as the three surviving plants also had large nibbles from their leaves.

So I worked hard on my three remaining plants. I nursed them. I loved them. I put eggshells around their bases to ward off the slugs. I gave TheBloke (TM) strict instructions to water them if it was dry when I was in New York. And finally, finally this week, the tallest (OK, only two feet, but still) finally looked like it was almost ready to bloom.

Today - coincidentally - we paid a man some money to come and chop down a tree that was too close to our house. He did a good job. Very thorough.

He didn't even charge us extra for the three weedy-looking sunflower plants he felled whilst carrying out his duties.

I will not be defeated. I'm already planning next year's sunflower crop. I think the secret is to plant more. 200 should give at least five of them a fighting chance of blossoming.