At first glance, the towering green stalk looks like a scene from “Jack and the Beanstalk” but Savo refers to the 118-inch sunflower as her fire ladder down to safety if she needs to escape from her upstairs bedroom.

The registered nurse jokes that Tyler Memorial Hospital co-workers have often kidded her about being “a Martha Stewart type” but she claims it was not her green-thumb that brought the idle seedling to life.

Savo said the mammoth flower took on a life of its own after an unsuspecting bird dropped the seedling in her perennial garden.

“During the fall I put my bird-feeder out front in the flower garden and fill it with sunflower seeds for the birds to nibble on,” she said, “and then during the summer I take it out back and fill it with a different food.”

“I’ve tried to actually plant sunflower seeds in the past but they have either not taken or they’ve grown to an average height. I have never seen anything quite like this,” she explained.

Only a few days ago the gargantuan flower measured 109 inches in height. Now, with its blossom atop the lofty stalk waiting to show its face of bright yellow, the stalk has grown an addition nine inches, with a base of five and a half inches in diameter.

“A lot of people have suggested that I show the flower at the Wyoming County Fair but I would need a truck to get it there in one piece,” she joked.

Savo said that she is an avid gardener, quilter and overall crafter but gives no creed to her own skills for the stalk that she can almost hear grow.

©The New Age Examiner 2006