Blue Jay picks sunflowers, yarrow

Sunflowers (helianthus annuus) are next on Blue Jay's list of plants. They give very nice green yellow die color when the fresh blossoms are used. We just have to plant some of these.

I’d like not only the common sunflowers but some of the bushier and smaller blossomed ones. Burpee.com has some of these, but their taller varieties are up to fourteen feet tall and are hybrids. Burpee.com doesn’t give the scientific name, either. Parkseeds.com has the helianthus annuus and various other sunflowers and does usually list the scientific name.

There is a particular challenge with sunflowers, too, reds, or blues from the Hopi Black Dye sunflower. Plantsofthesouthwest.com has seeds for this plant available. On their website they even mention the colors, blue to red, that can be obtained depending on the mordant. They mention the very dark seed coat as being instrumental for the colors. Until I can get vibrant colors from sunflower seeds this will be my enterprise.

Sunflower relatives are also native to the Rocky Mountains. The Aspen Sunflower (Helianthella quinquenervis) grows in damp woods and aspen groves, and flowers mid summer. The Tall Marsh Sunflower (Helianthus nuttallii) inhabits irrigation ditch banks, sloughs, and marshy places in the plains and foothills. The Prairie or Narrow Leaf Sunflower is shorter with smaller flowers and grows on roadsides and fields. And then, there is the Stiff Sunflower. Smaller still than the Prairie Sunflower, the center disk is brownish purple, a hopeful hue. (Hopeful because I hope that we can get good colors from the seed hulls.) It grows in drier areas, foothills, mesas and plains, and blooms in late summer. These are all field trip gathering items.

Blue Jay’s selection of Yarrow (Achilla) is going to be a classic. She can’t look at the Dyer’s Garden book or hear the name without mentioning her aunt in Dolores, and her “problem” with Yarrow. According to Blue Jay we’ll either be going there to pick some or having her aunt pick some. Meet the Natives locates Yarrow in all locations from plains to alpine. Surely we will have to harvest this in Dolores and maybe other hikes, rides and drives.