If you go out for a walk around the garden-park of Nadeshiko
Community Hall near the Seashore Drive Route 134, south-western part
of Hiratsuka now (late June), you will be charmed to find two kinds
of flower planted side by side as if they were friends. They are,
in fact. One kind is the Nadeshiko pink (a variety of dianthus), which is a native, and
Hiratsuka's city flower. The other is a sunflower, the state flower
of Kansas sent as a gift earlier this year from a friend in
Lawrence, KS, in the United States. And Hiratsuka and Lawrence are
international sister cities whose relationship started in September,
1990.
The sunflower (about 70 plants) in the garden were the outcome of the flower's seeds sent as a gift to Mr. Yasuo Morofushi, principal of Nadeshiko Elementary School in February this year. The gift sender was Mrs. Thelma Crawford who lives in Wellsville, a small town about 25 miles from Lawrence. Ms. Crawford sent ten varieties of Kansas native sunflower seeds, via Dr. Janet Broers, principal of Sunflower Elementary School in Lawrence, with which Nadeshiko has been exchanging flower seeds of Nadeshiko and Sunflower for over a year now.
Why did Mrs. Crawford send the sunflower seeds to Nadeshiko? Her daughter went to school together with Dr. Broers' husband years ago. Mrs. Crawford has a collection of sunflower seeds for the purpose of encouraging native birds in Kansas to her garden -- cardinals, finch and many more (which appears to be a local tradition in the area in Kansas). She was kind enough to respond to Dr. Broers' request and gathered ten varieties of sunflower seeds from her collection. Her flower gift included solid white Tarahumara (very old strain) grown by the Tarahumara, a local native American tribe. Those rare kinds are being preserved by the seed saver members in the area of Kansas, according to Mrs. Crawford.
But, then, why are Mrs. Crawford's sunflower seeds planted here in the Nadeshiko Community Hall garden this year?
Principal Morofushi, following the successful project of his school children making the sunflower bloom from Lawrence last summer in the Nadeshiko School garden, had a secret plan to extend the Hiratsuka-Lawrence flower seed exchange program a little further this year -- to a community of Nadeshiko. Mr. Morofushi, finding the stock of sunflower seeds from last year's harvest at his school not sufficient to put his plan into action, wrote to Dr. Broers for support of some additional seeds from Lawrence. Meanwhile, a local, seasoned floriculturist, Haruo Kishi, joined to push the plan ahead together with his group of flower volunteers in the Nadeshiko community. Men and women flower lovers gathered together and planted half of Mrs. Crawford's sunflower seeds in the Nadeshiko Community on May 7th. The other half were planted by pupils in the garden of Nadeshiko School the same way as last year. Both are growing about 30 - 50 cm tall now with youthful green leaves shining brightly in the sun.
This time of the year, you will discover the Hiratsuka flower, pink, blooming beautifully in the Nadeshiko Community Hall garden and right next to the flower bed of Kansas sunflowers. They are certainly worth going out to see. Why not trying to walk out, go see them in a few weeks? The Lawrence sunflower may start budding to join the blooming Hiratsuka pink then.
June 23, 1996