A Kansas man celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary by surprising his wife with more than a million sunflowers.
In May, working with his son, Lee Wilson secretly planted 80 acres of sunflowers, around 1.2m plants, in preparation for the anniversary on 10 August.
Speaking to KAKE, an ABC affiliate TV station in Wichita, Wilson said: “What’s a guy get his gal for the 50th? 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 I planted her 80 acres of sunflowers.”
KAKE said each acre contained approximately 15,000 sunflowers, totaling about 1.2m.
“It made me feel very special,” Renee Wilson said. “It couldn’t have been a more perfect anniversary gift than a field of sunflowers.”
The couple met in high school. Lee Wilson said: “She couldn’t date until she was 16, and I called her on her 16th birthday, and that’s when we started dating. Our first date was a roller-skating party.”
He knew his wife was “the one”, he said, after that first date.
The sunflowers, which happen to be the Kansas state flower, are located off the south side of Highway 54, four miles outside Pratt, Kansas.
Wilson’s anniversary surprise drew plenty of comments online. One user tweeted that for other spouses approaching a significant anniversary, “The bar has been raised.”
Another said: “I can’t even get a text back.”
Lee said he would not be making the sunflowers an annual anniversary gift.
“It’s been fun but I think one time is enough for us,” he told KAKE. “It’s somebody else’s turn next year.”
