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Plant A Sunflower, Save A Bee. Gardener Bringing National Project To Local Schools

Starting this fall, students at several Leon County elementary and middle schools will raise sunflower plants. But the program is part of a national movement aimed at raising something other than the flowers.

The Great Sunflower Project, as it’s called, is coming to Tallahassee schools because of a local gardener, Priscilla Hudson. On Thursday, she was watering her seedlings, now just a couple of inches tall, in an empty lot next to the old Amtrak station near downtown Tallahassee. Leon County is lending her the space, where she’s planted dozens of the bright yellow flowers in shallow dirt atop wooden pallets.

“I’m just obsessed with sunflowers and bees,” she says.

Using grant money she won from beauty company Aveeno, Hudson is hoping the gardening project will help local students help bees.

“You’re providing food for them. And now that they’re in such decline, that’s making a difference,” she says. “Because then they provide that pollination service so that we can have all the food that we eat, all the strawberries, watermelons, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers, you know, most of what we eat.”

Once the flowers bloom, students will be encouraged to record once per day the number of bees they see near their plants. The data will be sent to researchers at San Francisco State University, who have been collecting data from volunteers since 2008 under the name Great Sunflower Project.

“And it’s not just kids either. I think everyone, adults included, feel a little overwhelmed with the way the world is now and feel a little helpless,” she says.

In addition to the school project, Hudson and members of the group with the punny name Talla Happy Sunflowers have distributed more than 10,000 sunflower seed packets to encourage planting around the city.

She says a half-dozen schools have invited her to start the project as part of their after-school programs.  The grant will allow her to continue at least through the entire school year.