LEHIGHTON, Pa. — As summer draws to a close, Newswatch 16's Jeremy Lewan writes an ode to the sunflower in this latest installment of Jeremy's Journeys—visiting the Sunflower Festival in Lehighton in Carbon County.
An army of tens of thousands of saluting sunflowers at Yenser's Tree Farm, sway in the summer breeze, standing at attention for their commander in chief: the sun.
The sheer variety of colors and sizes on display at Yenser's was astounding—from the traditional gigantic golden yellow; to the cool and creamy "Coconut Ice;" to the two-toned "Candy Mountain;" to Jeremy's personal favorite: the colossal "Chocolate Cherry" sunflower.
Jeremy had never heard of a red sunflower, let alone a Chocolate Cherry, until a viewer named Amy sent in a photo of hers to our Near Me section on the WNEP App. He subsequently shared the photo on his weather broadcast and has fell in love with Chocolate Cherry sunflowers ever since.
Cassandra Duncan is a fan of the more traditional sunflower, and she brought along her parents visiting from Massachusetts to pick her very own bouquet. She proudly held her flowers and explained, "I just got a sunflower tablecloth, so it's gonna match...quite lovely with my tablecloth."
The festival featured food trucks, hayrides, vendors selling special sunflower-themed crafts, a Farm Fun Zone for the kids, and sunflower maze dotted with interesting art installations, perfect for photo-ops.
For so many in our area and beyond, including for Aaron Strunk and his family, it is a family tradition to attend the Sunflower Festival every year. Strunk remarked, "We like to come and enjoy and the kids love it. It's a good time."
And many visitors travel hours to come to pick sunflowers at the festival, so it's imperative to keep them fresh on the drive home. Paige Sutton-Smith, a worker at Yenser's Tree Farm, spent the day bagging sunflowers for those traveling long distances home. She explained, "People pick their own and they cut them, and they start to wilt basically right away. And we have a lot of people that come from over an hour away, so what we do is, we encourage people to buy a burlap bag—we soak that in water. That will really hold the water and help the flowers, like, hold some moisture 'til they get them home and can put them in a vase."
It's no surprise that the sunflower has stolen the hearts of so many as their favorite. Cassandra Duncan admired her bouquet, sharing, "You know they're hardy, they're beautiful, they're...I was just telling my mom...they're a sign of the summer kind-of coming to a close, a nice transition from summer to fall...and you know, they're a lovely, beautiful flower."
As the sun sets on a staple symbol of summer. 🌻