July 6, 1998
My mom and I went to Botanica this afternoon, the botanical gardens in Wichita. We went to lunch first downtown and then walked through the gardens in the 100 degree heat. We didn't see any sunflowers, but they did have a large patch of large orange flowers with black centers. I don't recall the name now. They looked like Black Eyed Susans only about three times larger. Mom and I joked that if my sunflowers don't bloom we'll have to come back and take my picture by them so I can show people my extraordinary sunflower success story.
          It was really the first time since I've been back that my mother and I have spent time together uninterrupted and peacefully, as our strong, divergent personalities often get in the way.
          Botanica was really quite lovely. It's a great deal smaller than the Missouri Botanical Gardens, but comparing any but a few botanical gardens in the US to the ones in St. Louis is unfair. I am considering volunteering some time there once a week. I think it would be the best way to learn about gardening ~ cheaper than taking a class, more effective than reading about it and faster than trial and error.

July 16, 1998
I haven't written much about my garden recently, and I expect that's because I've been rather depressed by it for awhile. I have decided that I planted the seedlings too close together and this is the reason why they haven't grown taller than they are. I had decided that they simply weren't going to bloom and had completely given up hope. (When I decide something is going to happen, it is as though it's over and in the past. Once I was meeting a friends' plane and I waited waited waited for him to walk through the gate. After ¾ of the passengers had disembarked I "knew" he had missed his flight and I sat there trying to decide what to do. I was completely surprised when he walked up to me five minutes later.)
          However, they have grown noticeably in the past few days (although the tallest ones are barely waist high, dammit). Today I went out to assess the situation and to my great surprise found the beginnings of heads on about half of the flowers! I nearly fainted.

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