A County Down family is preparing to plant a ‘sun-sational’ sea of sunflowers, an ongoing legacy to their late and dearly-missed dad which has already raised tens of thousands of pounds for charity.
The sight to behold will once again bloom brightly this September on the Ballymoney Road, between Dromore and Banbridge.
And the public are again being invited to come along and enjoy the spectacle – and take some sunflowers home for themselves.
There will certainly be no shortage, as this month will see the ground being ploughed as around three quarters of a million sunflowers are planted and allowed to grow ahead of the gates swinging open to the masses.
Add to that a further 10 million wildflowers, and it really will be a riot of radiant colours on the Woods family homestead.
Known as the Sunflower Woods, given the family name, people travel from near and far to breathe in the sight, which returns in 2026 after a year’s absence.
Alex Woods – along with her three sisters and mum Marie – are known locally simply as ‘the Woods girls’ and it is they who continue to undertake this labour of love in memory of dad Jim.
For it is he who initiated the sunflower planting – at Alex’s behest – but sadly did not get to see the fantastical result.
As Alex explained to Armagh I : “During Covid, my parents and I were all shielding. I was out just tidying up around the fields, just filling up my day, and I came in one night and said to dad about planting some sunflowers.
“He didn’t say much about it, but he came back about an hour later and said that he had phoned Joe Walls, that’s where we always have got our seeds from, and ordered two acres of sunflower seeds. I was quite shocked.
“But my dad had a catastrophic stroke the very next morning and he died 16 days later and it was the last phone call he ever made. So sunflowers are literally sacred in our family because it was the last thing our dad ever did and it’s like his legacy.
“We did two acres in 2020, which was initiated by my dad actually ordering the seed and our seed actually arrived the day he passed away.
“In Covid, we couldn’t have a wake or a funeral, we couldn’t do anything like that, so nothing was normal. So our flowers grew that August and our friends came back that August to support us, because they couldn’t be with us whenever dad passed. So they’re really special to us because they cheered us up first and foremost and then all our friends afterwards.”
Things have expanded greatly even since that time. As well as the sunflowers, now sown over a much greater area, the family have planted trees too, 1,000 in all.
Sunflowers as far as the eye can see!
In two separate areas, 498 trees were put down and named the ‘Jim Woods’, a lasting tribute to dad’s name. The remainder are known as the ‘Platinum Woods’, given that they were planted in the year of the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
That in itself is fitting as Alex is, without fear of contradiction, a big fan of the Royals.
Indeed, the home-grown sunflowers have certainly had the Royal seal of approval, bringing a smile to the face of the Princess Royal on what was a difficult anniversary…
As Alex recalled: “Princess Anne was in Dromore at the World Sheepdog Trials and I went down to see her and it just happened to be at sunflower time. I brought her a bunch of sunflowers and I was just standing behind the barriers, as you do. I just thought it was a good opportunity when I had a big field of sunflowers.
“Her security came over to the barriers and said, ‘would you like to present the flowers to the Princess personally?’. Well, of course, as a royalist, I said, ‘absolutely, I would be delighted to’. Whenever she came down I gave her the flowers, explained to her that we grew flowers in memory of my dad and to raise money for the RNLI.
“She said back to me, ‘I think I’ll give these to my husband’, and I said to her, ‘I think you need these flowers in the week that this is’. By the day, it was exactly one year from she travelled from Balmoral following in her mother’s cortege. It was exactly the same day one year later. She took a step back and just said, ‘thank you very much’, and it was a very definite, I can’t believe you’ve realised what day this is. So it was very special to hand those over.
“I’ve also given flowers to the Duchess of Edinburgh, Sophie, at Balmoral Show in 2021. I love the Royals. I did lie on the street for 36 hours for the the Queen’s funeral!”
With all this talk of Royals, the crowning glory of the whole endeavour is raising the princely sum of £45,000 for good causes over these past years, £18,000 of that having been presented to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
“We have raised money for others charities too; every year’s for the RNLI, and sometimes another charity,” said Alex. “We have always spent a lot of our summers by Carlingford Lough. We’ve always seen the good work that the RNLI have done. The crew in Kilkeel are just some of the nicest people I’ve ever met and they’re so appreciative. If we bring them a pound or bring them £6000 they’re so appreciative and they tell us what they spend the money on.
“They go out in Force 9 gales and they’re amazing. They’re just unbelievable people saving lives at sea and I couldn’t speak highly enough of them.
Wildflowers bring an added splash of colour!
“We’ve also raised money for the Evora Hospice, the Air Ambulance, Kidney Research, and then we’ve given to a few smaller charities in our local area as well.”
It’s great to be able to support the work of such fantastic charities which really do make a difference, saving – and improving the quality of – other people’s lives.
But even that is an added extra, as far as Alex is concerned.
“Raising money is a bonus in our project,” she said. “ Our project, first and foremost, was to help people mentally after Covid and to reconnect with their families somewhere safe. That’s what our sunflowers do, they cheer people up. People don’t come out of a sunflower field and complain and, if they do, there’s no hope!
“Whenever anyone arrives, they’re just told there’s two rules within the sunflower fields – one is to enjoy the flowers and the second is to take some home with you! And we don’t care if you take one or 100 flowers; if they cheer you up, or cheer your neighbours up, or cheer a sick family member up, take them some flowers.
“We didn’t do it last year because we needed to give the field a break. We just put some barley in and did a wee bit of maintenance and things on it but we’re ready to plant now in May again for this year. We’ve had thousands of visitors here and I don’t think we’ve had any complaints.”
The ‘Woods girls’ are forever grateful for the help and sterling efforts of two local businesses who help make the popular annual attraction a reality year on year.
Local contractor RB Heslip ploughs and seeds the fields, while Joseph Walls, from Hilltown, supplies the seeds, both giving generously and freely of their time and product.
After planting in May, hopes will be high of another year of magical moments created amid the sunflowers come September.
“We close on a Monday. We try and keep Mondays for special schools, those with autism, or for whenever people need it quiet here,” added Alex. “It’s not by invitation, but if somebody has an issue with crowds, or wee kids don’t like crowds, we’ll try to say to them, come up on a Monday and there’ll be no-one else here. Then we need to do a wee bit of maintenance as well on Mondays.
“We’re open from 11am to 5pm most days and, if it’s a good evening, we’ll stay open late. It’s not rigid the opening times. There’ll be rainy days as well that we’ll not be able to open at all. It’s usually open six days a week and I just update on Facebook if there’s any changes. It usually stays open for the month of September. That’s why we plant a wee bit later. You need to plant when the frost stops, but we plant a wee bit later to have a September opening date.
“You get all the first day at school pictures and things like that here, so it’s quite a nice time to have it. There’s wee kids come here most years when they’re in their new school. For an awful lot of families, this is a yearly event. They come to visit the sunflowers and we have lots of picnic areas and people can bring a picnic and just enjoy time with their families.
“That’s the point of it all, just to reconnect with your family.”
To keep up to date with progress and opening arrangements later in the year, visit the Sunflower Woods Facebook page here.
