Kansas farmer plants 1.2M sunflowers to surprise wife for 50th anniversary

PRATT, Kan. — Even after 50 years, love still blossoms for a Kansas couple.

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A farmer decided to surprise his wife with a special anniversary gift. For their golden anniversary, Lee Wilson planted 80 acres of sunflowers on their farm in Platt, KAKE-TV reported.

That works out to about 1.2 million flowers in their southern Kansas farm.

The couple will celebrate their 50th anniversary on Aug. 10. Wilson was trying to figure out a special gift when the perfect idea germinated in his head.

“What’s a guy get his gal on their 50th?” Wilson told KAKE. “And I put a lot of thought into it and she always liked sunflowers and I thought this is the year to plant sunflowers so we planted her 80 acres of sunflowers.”

Wilson planted the field in May on the sly, enlisting his son’s help so his wife, Renee Wilson, would not find out, according to the television station.

“It made me feel very special,” Renee Wilson told KAKE. “It couldn’t have been a more perfect anniversary gift than a field of sunflowers.”

Sunflowers are definitely appropriate in Kansas, as it is the official state flower.

The sunflower field now looks like a rolling carpet of yellow on the south side of Highway 54, according to “Good Morning America.”

It is a heartwarming gift of love, which began when Lee Wilson met his future wife in high school.

“She couldn’t date until she was 16, and I called her on her 16th birthday and that’s when we started dating,” Wilson told KAKE. “Our first date was a roller skating party, an FFA roller skating party in Harper Kansas.”

Lee Wilson said the sunflower field will not be an annual anniversary gift.

“Oh it’s been fun but I think one time is enough for us,” he told the television station. “It’s somebody else’s turn next year.”