Golden opportunity

Many drivers in Dover can't help but stop to take in the beauty.

By BEN MONTGOMERY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 12, 2007

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DOVER -- It happened again.

The sunflowers that strawberry farmer Eddie Jones spread on seven ordinary acres winked open a few days ago -- hundreds, then thousands, of them -- and began to pull from the stream of life a bunch of people who paused to take in something temporary and quite beautiful.

"They're so warm," said Andree Ruggeri, 66, of Lakeland, whose sister lived beside a sunflower field in the south of France. "It takes me away."

"This is delightful," said Genevieve Perkins, a plein air painter from Sarasota who set her easel on the edge of the field. "You've got so many colors out there."

"We were just driving down the road and I looked over and I was like, 'Sunflowers!' " said Shannon Wright, 18, of Lakeland, who stopped to snap photos with friends. "It's something you don't ever see in Florida."

The field sits east of Tampa, along State Road 60, out past the suburban strip-mall canyons.

It has never been much to see.

But last year farmer Jones needed a cover crop to replenish the soil and prevent erosion between growing seasons. So he mixed 12 bags of sunflower seeds into his standard iron clay peas because, as his fiancee said, "Eddie likes pretty things."

When the flowers bloomed, people noticed.

So Jones did it again this year, and again people stopped with cameras and paints. They walked through the field like children. They called it a gift.

"I just think they're so beautiful," said Lori Cancel, a 39-year-old from Tampa who got one tattooed on her chest, above the name Rick. She heard about the field last year, but a few days later the flowers were gone.

So it goes this year. The flowers will remain another week or so, then a man on a tractor will mow them under and end another short burst of gold.

Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or 813 310-6066.