Sunflowers grew wild along rural roads and open fields around Dallas when I was a child.

Little did I know that their ancestors were present in Mesoamerica, present day Mexico, as early as 2600 B.C. The Aztecs and Incas used the sunflower to portray solar deities, and Native American Indians planted them on the northern edge of their gardens as the fourth sister to the better known three sister crops of corn, beans and squash. Grown as a commercial crop today, sunflower oil is used for cooking, manufacturing margarine and as a biodiesel component.

Sunflower kernels are sold as snack food, and most wild birds favor the black-oil sunflower in feeders. Farmers wishing to convert to organic gardening grow them to clear old pesticides and chemical fertilizers from the soil. Ornamentally, sunflowers make excellent cut flowers and are popular bee and butterfly plants.

Sunflowers also lend their name to The Great Sunflower Project which came into existence in 2008.

Scientists have been concerned for over two decades that bees have been disappearing in the wilderness, on farms and in towns and cities for various reasons. The Great Sunflower Project is a method to help scientists collect data that will be used to produce the first real map of the state of bees in this country. They need volunteer scientists from across the nation to collect data. They want us to plant sunflowers or other bee-attracting plants in our gardens and encourage others to do so as well.

Volunteers are asked to spend 15 minutes watching and counting the number and types of bees visiting the flowers twice a month during the growing season, then send the data over the Internet. This would be a good project to do with your kids this summer. They have a special project observation sheet to complete online.

Gardens with 10 or more species of bright, attractive plants tend to attract the largest number of bees. Diversity is important, and bright annuals and herbs can easily be planted in with vegetables. Lemon Queen, an heirloom sunflower that produces lots of blooms with lemon yellow petals around a brown center is the recommended sunflower variety. It is inexpensive and produces lots of nectar and pollen. Some sunflowers, such as the Teddy Bear variety, produce very little pollen and are not adequate for the project.

Sunflowers take 10-13 days to germinate after planting. They require full sun for at least eight hours a day and sufficient moisture when seedlings are young. After the first five or six weeks, they are relatively drought- tolerant. Gardeners should allow about a foot between plants. They will flower for about six weeks, but generally take around 90 days to reach maturity.

Other bee-friendly plants can be monitored. They include monarda or bee balm, a member of the mint family with bright red or fuchsia blooms; Large Flowered Tickseed; cosmos; rosemary; goldenrod, a Mississippi native that produces yellow pollen-laden plumes in late August through September; catnip; lantana; plumbago; salvias; purple coneflower; rudbeckia or Black-eyed Susan; fennel; basil; tithonia or Mexican sunflower; and zinnia. Avoid blossoms with double petals or ruffles.

Dr. Blake Layton, an entomology specialist at Mississippi State University Extension Service, warned in an article on honey bees in the February 2011 issue of Mississippi Gardener Magazine to refrain from spraying with pesticides completely or spray only when foraging bees are not present, such as late afternoon near dusk. Pesticides sprayed on crops when bees are foraging tend to kill worker bees.

We all have a vested interest in the plight of pollinators. One in every three bites of food we eat are dependant on bees. Home, school, community and local gardens produce 15 to 20 percent of the fruit and vegetables we eat.

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Miriam Jabour, a Master Gardener and Master Flower Show judge, has been active in the Openwood Plantation Garden Club for over 35 years. Write to her at 1114 Windy Lake Drive, Vicksburg, MS 39183.