March 31, 2009
May 1st is quickly approaching. Know what day that is? It is Internation Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day! On that day, gardeners around the world will sprinkle sunflower seeds in neglected publics areas in their neighborhoods.
The organizers of International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day recommend that you gather at 8PM local time on May 1 and bring seeds, tools, and ideas for where to plant the sunflower seeds.
Sunflowers are easy to plant. Take a bottle of tap water, and a small tool for making a 1" deep hole. Find some sunny earth, dig the 1" deep hole and drop a seed in. Cover the hole with dirt and water. The sunflowers should be blooming by August.
Facebook hosts the International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening group. Check there for more information.
Technorati Tags: international sunflower guerilla gardening day, planting sunflowers, sunflowers
March 30, 2009
The Great Sunflower Project is giving away free sunflower seeds for creating an account and joining their project. Take a few minutes and register and you'll get some free sunflower seeds to plant in your garden. Check out the Smith Family Garden talking about the Great Sunflower Project.
Technorati Tags: free sunflower seeds
March 16, 2009
By Belinda Crouse
Celestial sun wall decor will make an upbeat, festive splash in your casual living areas: sun room, patio, family room; even a bathroom or kitchen. You will discover dozens of ideas for sun decor in your home.
The inside entrance to your home is a great place to set a welcoming upbeat tone for your home. Let's start with a metal sun wall decor piece. Hang the sun on the wall high enough to hang a functional coat rack below it. If you have a large enough wall here, accent with smaller moon and/or stars for the "whole" look. Select the style, color and size that is appealing to you and a style that compliments your home overall.
The family room or casual living area is a fun area to decorate with celestial sun moon wall decor. Because of the size, this would be a great room to include the popular star wall decor as an accent. Either above the mantel or behind the sofa--whichever you would like to be your main focal point, you can hang a large, classy sun wall hanging. Accent it with wall pockets or metal wall candle sconces. Use a pair of star shaped wall pockets and fill with artificial greenery and/or bright, sunny flowers. Sunflowers are really popular right now. Candle sconces, with a leaf or star motif, incorporated in the design will help carry your look. For a more upscale sun wall decor look, you may want to try a more abstract sun look--one with no face or a piece that just has a sunburst, ray look.
Continue your sun wall decor to the smaller wall spaces in your room with a grouping of stars or stars and moon. Including a mirror or wall clock in the grouping, when enough space is available, adds an extra touch to the room. Just make sure the home decor accessories have the same style and feel...whether casual, country, traditional...
One room we have found to be quite popular for sun wall decor, is the bathroom. In most baths, you will need to find smaller sun decor. One suggestion, would be to hang decorative sun stepping stones. Most of the decorative stones, on the market, have hangers on the back just for this purpose. The stepping stones are a good size and resistant to the humidity and moisture found in bathroom areas. The bathroom is a fun room to hang a small, "sunny" windchime. Finish it off with a small artificial flower pot with bright daisies or sunflowers. A small sun plant poke would make a nice finishing touch.
I think you will agree that just about anything goes in the kitchen today. Sun decor will be great to brighten up a small, wall starved kitchen. It would be extra fun if you are lucky enough to have a breakfast nook. The normally limited wall space in a kitchen is broken into small, odd shaped areas. So, lets go on a search for some smaller, unique sun wall decor. Keep your eyes open for a small moon or stars to accent and mix and match with the sun decor. Hang your favorite sun wall decor piece above the kitchen sink or on a wall space at the end of your cupboards. Hang the smaller accent, celestial pieces on the narrow wall area between your wall cabinets and the counter tops.
This area, I would recommend, that you focus a grouping in one area to create a focal point. Then above the cabinets, if you have a wall area, decorate with small sun, moon star decor, interspersed with kitchen and family word art. If you have a ledge above your cabinets, place a sun on a pedestal--you may be able to use short plant pokes. Give a back drop and "fluff" the area with artificial greenery, sunflowers and vases--they are all a great look with sun decor. In the breakfast nook, it would be fun to include a rooster with the sun theme. Mixing and matching is very popular, fun and easy--if you like it, go for it! Sun kitchen home decor can also be worked in with an Italian kitchen theme, just use more of the rich, deep coloring associated with the look.
Lets step outside now--first, lets consider the screened in, 3- seasons porch. This area will come to life with a bright sun wall hanging right next to your windows. Consider a sun themed water fountain on a tabletop. Add wall pockets and vases with silk grasses and flowering sunflower bushes--or your favorite flower. Hang a sun windchime in the corner and add celestial plant pokes to your vases. Get the idea...have fun. You could change your wall pocket fillers with each season.
Now step out onto your outdoor patio. A large metal sun will be perfect on the exterior wall, near the door, leading into the house. Depending on the wall area available, you may also accent with the moon and stars. Add a celestial looking bird feeder. Fill large pots with live or artificial flower bushes and silk or live grasses. A sun wall trellis is a unique piece that is a great addition on the deck or in a nearby flower bed.
Sun wall decor is a trendy home decorating theme that you will find fits in the interior of your home or out on the deck. It is a cheery, fun look, that brings the great outdoors to life. Have fun decorating. Homedecoratingstudio.com has lots of great pieces to help with your decorating.
This article is provided to you by Belinda Crouse, owner of
http://www.homedecoratingstudio.com and Cotton Seed Studio. I have a BS
degree from South Dakota State University in Textiles and Clothing-
Retail. I have been the owner of a gift, craft and home decor business
since 1983. I opened Cotton Seed Studio, a home decor, personal
product, gift and coffee bar shop, in January 2006. I also do custom
design projects, specialty boutiques and have started doing home staging
for local realtors. Early in 2007, we introduced our on line home
decor catalog: http://www.homedecoratingstudio.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Belinda_Crouse
http://EzineArticles.com/?Sun-Wall-Decor-Ideas-To-Decorate-Inside-and-Out&id=1004500
By Peter Mueller
You love flowers? You want a bright wedding theme? You like the sun? Then why don't you use sunflowers for your main wedding theme. The sunflower is a symbol of happiness, prosperity, and peace. What more can you wish for your marriage? If you want to have a bright-yellow sunflower wedding, be aware that the best time to get real sunflowers is July to September. But in case you have no problem to use silk sunflowers for the decoration, you can have this kind of a wedding around the whole year.
Colors
The colors you use for the decoration and the dresses should be light colors like yellow, orange and crème. Colors that reflect the summer season and create a sunny, warm and easy feeling. You can use some red and brown dabs to loosen up the theme a bit.
Decoration
The best decoration for a sunflower wedding consists of -of course- more sunflowers. You can have sunflower candles, sunflowers printed on table cloths and napkins, sunflower lights, flower arrangements made of sunflowers (best complemented by other bright colored flowers like white roses) and much more. But there is also no real reason to stop with the decoration. Why not use sunflower tie holders for the groom or sunflower hair pins for the bride and the bridesmaids? Or sunflower ornaments on the dresses? You have a lot of options here, so be creative.
Flowers
Usually each of the bridesmaids carries a single sunflower. The bride has a bouquet of sunflowers, often complemented by roses or chamomiles. Ask your local florist for more ideas. He knows best what flowers he can use at the time of the year you celebrate your wedding. If you are on a budget ask him about silk flowers for the complementary flowers of your bouquet and decoration, too.
Wedding Favors
You can use your decoration for wedding favors, too. Give some extra candles like the ones you used for your table centerpieces as favors. Or give your guests real sunflowers for their homes. A very nice wedding favor is a custom bagged sunflower seeds with your names and the wedding date on the bag. Your guests can plant the seeds next spring in their garden and will think about your wonderful special day every time they see the grown sunflower in the summer.
You see how easy it is to build the decoration of your wedding reception around these beautiful plant? So if you are looking for a fresh, sunny and warm floral theme for your wedding, be sure to consider sunflowers.
You are looking for more ideas and tips for your theme wedding? Then check out http://www.dreamofawedding.com
Or in case you're interested in some unique wedding ideas to make your special day perfect take a look at http://www.squidoo.com/uniqueweddingideas
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Mueller
http://EzineArticles.com/?Sunflower-Wedding-Theme---A-Sunny-Idea-For-Your-Special-Day&id=1231611
The sunflower was found by Francisco Pizarro in Tahuantinsuyo, Peru. The sunflower was worshipped by the natives Incas as a symbol of the sun god. At the beginning of the 16th century, the sunflower seeds and gold figures of the flower were brought to Europe.
The sunflower is native to the Americas. Evidence indicates that the sunflower was first domesticated in Mexico around 2600 BC. It may have been domesticated a second time in the middle Mississippi Valley. It may also have been introduced there from Mexico at an early date.
The earliest known examples of a fully domesticated sunflower north of Mexico are in Tennessee around 2300 BC. The sunflower was used by many indigenous American peoples as the symbol of the sun deity, including the Aztecs and the Otomi of Mexico and the Incas in South America.
During the 18th Century, the use of sunflower oil became very popular in Europe, particularly with members of the Russian Orthodox Church because sunflower oil was one of the few oils that was not prohibited during Lent.
By Elizabeth Harding
Vincent's Sunflowers
"The sunflower is mine in a way." –Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" are among his most famous paintings, but few people realize he did many sunflower pictures, not just the most famous "Vase with Twelve Sunflowers" and "Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers." These were canvases he made to decorate the Yellow House in Arles in anticipation of his friend Paul Gauguin's visit, and in the hope that other artists would follow and form a Utopian art community. Some of Vincent's sunflower paintings are all but indistinguishable, with only tiny differences to prove one reproduction is different from the next. During his stay in Paris, he painted cut sunflowers in different stages of being, from fresh to wilted to dry.
He appears to have brought his passion for sunflowers with him from his homeland in Holland wherever he roamed, and indeed, they make the kind of dramatic subject he loved. Around the world today, the sunflower is synonymous with Vincent's work, immediately recognizable and every bit as much his own as the water lilies belonging to Monet.
Vincent's "Sunflowers No. 2," the most famous sunflower still life, yellow on yellow, possesses the same universal appeal and impact of all his most beloved pictures. So widespread is the appeal of his sunflowers, in fact, that in 1987, a Japanese company paid a record of the equivalent of almost 40 million dollars for "Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers" at an auction. Van Gogh's many sunflower canvases are flung all over the world in testimony to his mastery, now residing in art galleries in Europe, London and Tokyo, to name a few.
During his stay in Paris, Vincent hobnobbed with some of the greatest Impressionist painters of the period. The artists all had a great effect on one another, including van Gogh, who was recognized as a formidable genius by "Les Vingt," Monet and Toulouse Lautrec, among others. One can readily discern the Paris sunflowers from the ones Vincent painted later, in the Yellow House at Arles, since they are cut flowers without vases. These cut sunflowers are depicted in various stages of wilting, but Vincent's final bright and bold color palette is evident at this point in his artistic development, permeating the pictures with life and joy.
The master's influence on western art and artists cannot be overstated. His work bridged impressionism, expressionism, cubism and more with a unique language understood by all lovers of beauty and truth. The enormous popularity of a simple vase of sunflowers attests to his power and sincerity.
Though Vincent was plagued by a serious mental imbalance and eventually took his own life, he left a body of over 2,000 canvases, painted in about a decade, as a living legacy. Whether they represent his portrayals of living fields of wheat or swirling stars, tender and thoughtful portraits of the peasants he loved or starkly vivid flowers in a simple vase, his works all bear his own stylistic imprint. Seen as a superb form of communication of the spirit, his work succeeded beyond his wildest dreams to comfort and console humanity through art. It is through his paintings, not his over-romanticized, beleaguered life, that he should be judged as the poet, prophet and master artist he was.
Visit the Life of Van Gogh website for more information on Van Gogh paintings, or to get out own Biography of Vincent Van Gogh.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elizabeth_Harding
http://EzineArticles.com/?Analysis-of-The-Sunflowers---Vincent-van-Gogh&id=300570
By Jason Levin
In the West, sunflowers have traditionally only been considered for their ornamental or nutritional value. However, further research and experimentation have uncovered a surprisingly wide range of potential applications. In truth, sunflowers have been harvested for a variety of reasons for thousands of years. It is widely believed that American Indians harvested sunflowers long before they harvested corn.
While those people from past generations could not have imagined the ways in which sunflowers would one day be used, they discovered their own uses for the plant. Their creativity and resourcefulness imply that they understood the plant's potential lay beyond purposes that were merely decorative or dietary. In this article, we'll provide a brief overview of how sunflowers are being used today.
Skin Care
The cosmetics industry has always gone to great lengths to promote a new crop of products. When sunflower oil was revealed to have a smoothing effect on the skin, manufacturers quickly explored how to include the oil in their formulations. Today, the oil that is extracted from sunflowers is used as a non-occlusive moisturizer for the face and body.
Consumption For Health
Sunflowers provide oil that contains a high level of essential fatty acids. These fatty acids, particularly omega-3's, offer a number of health benefits. They lower cholesterol and thereby, prevent heart disease. Plus, continuing research has suggested that omega-3 fatty acids can even lower blood pressure. Restaurants and food manufacturers have begun using sunflower oil to prepare foods, replacing other ingredients that contain much higher levels of unhealthy saturated fat.
Whether the seeds are eaten as a low-fat, high-protein snack, or the oil is used for cooking and baking, sunflowers continue to play a large role in our diets.
Industrial Uses
A lot of people would be surprised to learn that sunflowers are being used in various industrial and commercial settings. For example, scientists discovered several years ago that hydrogen could be produced from sunflower oil, offering a renewable energy source that was friendly to the environment. With the price of fuel escalating, the thought of using hydrogen powered engines (by way of sunflower oil) to propel our vehicles is tantalizing.
Other applications are either widely used or currently being explored. For example, using oils is necessary for the production of certain types of paints and plastics. However, oils that contain high levels of linolenic acid can affect the color of these compounds. Limited usage in production runs suggest that sunflower oil may be an alternative. Meanwhile, in countries where the price of sunflower oil is comparatively lower (i.e. countries throughout Eastern Europe), the oil has been used for years to produce soaps and various detergents.
Sunflowers are also used for coloring purposes. Once the seeds have been harvested and dehulled, they can be used to produce dyes. These dyes provide coloring for an assortment of products including textiles, baskets, and even bedding materials.
Looking For Answers
Scientists continue to explore different ways in which to leverage sunflowers' myriad industrial uses. They have tested the plant's efficacy in the production of lubricants and adhesives. They have experimented with them while creating fabric softeners and pesticides. Sunflowers were even used to help eliminate uranium from the soil following the Chernobyl disaster.
It is likely that researchers will uncover additional ways in which sunflowers can provide value to our lives. More than a nutritional snack, moisturizer, or source of essential fatty acids, sunflowers may become a powerful natural resource that outperforms alternatives at a lower price.
Order sunflowers online at the Sunflower Guy online store and deliver smiles to someone you care about.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Levin
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Diverse-Uses-For-Sunflowers&id=1675507
By John Yazo
Sunflowers like nothing better than the nutrient rich humus that can only be found in an organic garden. This type of natural organic fertile soil is what will have your plants thrive by producing a strong healthy plant with vibrant yellow flowers that will light up your yard and garden. Along with the beauty of these plants, they will create an environment to attract wildlife that will benefit you in a natural method of pest control and for you to enjoy the beauty of nature in your own yard.
There are many different varieties, sizes, color variations and shapes of sunflowers that you can choose from. They can be chosen for there beauty or to be harvested for bird feed and human consumption. Whichever variety you choose and for whatever purpose, you can be sure that they will be the highlight of your garden.
When choosing a variety it is best to make sure you choose one that produces a healthy strong stalk to support the flower size to withstand the threat of possible wind damage that could accrue. A plant that produces a good healthy strong stalk will prevent them for falling over, not only because of wind but also due to the weight that a large flower can have.
Sunflowers like full sunlight, a nutrient rich humus soil and also need to be planted where the flower is going to face east. They need to have between six to eight hours of direct sunlight to thrive and produce a large healthy flower. A soil that is full of organic rich nutrients is very important.
The root system of a sunflower will grow very quickly and require large amounts of nutrients at a steady basis. Without the proper maintenance of the soil a sunflower can deplete these nutrient needed for it to thrive a produce a strong healthy plant and flower. A weekly watering and feeding of a nutrient rich compost tea will keep the nutrients in the soil and improve the soil structure if your garden at the same time.
Sunflowers are a easy plant to grow with very little care. A good healthy organic nutrient rich soil is the key to growing sunflowers that will thrive and produce a vibrant flower that will brighten up your yard.
A environment friendly and healthy way of gardening. Organic Gardening is away of gardening in harmony with nature. Growing a healthy and productive crop in a way that is healthier for both you and the environment.
John Yazo
http://www.organicheirloomgardening.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Yazo
http://EzineArticles.com/?Organic-Gardening---The-Best-Method-to-Use-For-Growing-Sunflowers&id=2023880
By Gail Leino
Be sure to order your sunflower seeds while you can because when the heat of the summer gets here it’s going to be too late to start those sunflowers let alone find any seeds to plant in the ground. They’ll all ready be snatched up. Sunflowers are probably the best way to introduce your child to the idea of gardening. They are like big, yellow, giants that the kids can come outside everyday to measure and add the end of the summer they can save the heads of the sunflowers and dry them for the seeds. Sunflower seeds themselves are fun treats for the kids because you have to shell them in order to get at the seed meat inside. Kids also love that they are actually eating something fresh out of their own garden.
You can of course find all kinds of Sunflowers to put in your garden. There are dwarf sunflowers that only come up to your waist and the Sunflower Giants that grow up to eight feet tall! Imagine growing that in the yard! Your child will probably want the biggest, yellowest Sunflower that you can find, but be sure to keep in mind the space requirements when you make that purchase. The really tall Sunflower types tend to break in strong winds so you may need to place them in a wind sheltered area of the yard, but they are sunflowers so they will still need lots of light
Also the birds and other common animals love sunflower seeds, so you’ll need to keep an eye out for the creatures while you are growing them. Otherwise you may not have any seeds left at the end of the summer to harvest. Since this is a project for the kids make sure to take lots of photographs and keep some of the sunflower petals to put in a special keepsake album.
Mrs. Party... Gail Leino is the internet's leading authority on selecting the best possible party supplies (http://partysupplieshut.com), using proper etiquette and manners while also teaching organizational skills and fun facts. The Party Supplies Hut has a huge selection of free party games, coloring pages, word find, word scramble, printable baby and bridal shower activities. Huge selection of grower direct Flowers Delivered right to your door by local florists or by the flower grower.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gail_Leino
http://EzineArticles.com/?Sunflowers-are-a-Fun-Plant-for-the-Kids&id=390242
