Good summer weather means more blooms than ever at Alberta SunMaze
About an hour north of Calgary, Alta., sits the Bowden SunMaze, a sunflower maze that is having the best year ever thanks to the weather
If you’re in search of an amazing way to bid adieu to summer, or say hello to fall, this might be it.
Thanks to ideal summer weather, the 16-acre Bowden SunMaze has more sunflower blooms than ever right now.
But you may want to visit sooner rather than later, as those vibrant petals and giant leaves are just a frost away from falling off for the season.
“It’s an incredible time to come”, says John Mills, SunMaze owner.
“July was extremely wet and rainy. Ultimately, we can’t complain about that moisture, and following that, it was hot right through to September and the plants took advantage of that.”
Bowden SunMaze owner, John Mills, says the wet, growing season helped the sunflower heads grow to significant size this year. The heads of oil seed sunflowers, commonly grown in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, can be quite small during dry years. (Connor O’Donovan/The Weather Network)
At the start of the growing season, the farm will typically stagger seeding over a number of weeks to draw out the blooming season when late summer arrives.
This year, thanks to that aforementioned heat, Mills says those fields planted later in the have bloomed earlier than normal.
In fact, right now he says visitors can see at least some blooms in all of his fields, and estimates that (while the figure will shrink as October approaches) there were as many as 150,000 sunflowers in bloom on the farm as September reached its midway point.
But, as mentioned, the first significant frost of the year will arrive at some point in the near future.
The average date of first frost falls in the middle of September for the corridor between Red Deer And Calgary. As you can see, some parts of this region are already on borrowed time. (The Weather Network)
“As soon as we have a night of -3 C, the petals and the leaves of the sunflower will all freeze and they’ll fall off,” says Mills.
“Likely, we’ll last right through to the end of September, but if we get a cold night between now and then, ultimately that's the closing day for the season.”
So, be sure to keep an eye on The Weather Network’s forecast as you plan your visit.
(The Weather Network)
The short-term forecast looks promisingly warm, though, and if the trend of the past five years in the Calgary-area continues, you may still have a couple weeks of exploration left in the season.
“The first autumn frost typically falls on Sept. 12 in Red Deer, but can be influenced by cloud temperature, wind and cold intrusion,” says Dylan Kikuta, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.
“In fact, [in] the past five years in Calgary, we’ve seen the first frost occur well after the average date.”