A Welcome Bit of Newnham Sunshine!
As a keen gardener I always enjoy visiting my local garden centres and each Spring I buy small plants to bring on in the greenhouse. Sometimes I sow a few seeds but generally I start with the plug plants. This year, like everyone else, I was caught out by the sudden ‘coronavirus lockdown’. Not being prepared, as far as gardening was concerned, and with everywhere closed, I discovered that I had a small amount of compost and not very much to plant…
I decided to spend my time productively giving the greenhouse a long-overdue spring-clean and a tidy-up. My reward was finding a dusty biscuit tin which contained a stash of old seed packets. I had put them away and forgotten about them! Amongst the various flowers and vegetables I was thrilled to find a packet of “Newnham Giant Yellow Sunflowers”. I can’t remember why they were sent as a ‘thank you’, perhaps for taking part in the fundraising… [Editor’s Note: The Newnham Giant Yellow Sunflowers were sent as a thank you for donating to the Changing Lives campaign.] The packet was dated “sealed year ending March 2016” and was unopened.
To my delight they did germinate and grew and grew. A few of them had a tough time being attacked by slugs and one had its stem almost eaten through but I tended to their injuries, making them splints out of plant labels and twine. Now they are flowering and the tallest is 6ft 3”.
So thank you, Newnham, for my thank you sunflowers, even if they are four or five years later than planned!
– Lyn Lindsay (Burgess, NC 1982)