Surprises in my yard

I did some yardwork in the backyard today (as usual on Sundays), and came across some accidental happy things:

1. The "weed" in my deck pit. I had noticed this "weed" growing about a month ago. It grew very quickly and kept getting taller and taller! I was kind of amused by it, and decided to let it go to see how big it would get. A few days ago I noticed some buds on the top of it. Well lo and behold, it's a sunflower! Like an eight foot tall sunflower plant! Just poking up out of my deck pit. One sunflower is already blooming and there's about four more buds on it.

2. Next to the sunflower, I noticed some type of petunia looking flower. Now, to my understanding, petunias are annuals, right? And I certainly didn't plant this there. There are about three purple petunia-looking flowers.

3. Last summer I had about three big containers in my "courtyard" area (at the foot of the deck) that I grew herbs in: basil, catnip, and sage. When the ice storm hit last December, huge tree limbs fell on all of the containers and busted them, and knocked what was left of the dead plants out. Earlier this spring, I cleaned them up and salvaged the containers as best I could. Apparently the herbs re-seeded themselves in the ground where the containers fell in December... Because I have a ton of baby basil plants, a flowering sage bush, and several catnip plants growing in the ground *next* to the containers!

Just goes to show, I guess, that good, beautiful things come from accidents. I assume the flowers are growing in the deck pit because the previous owners had those things planted there before they built the deck... And now that the deck is gone, and light is shining on that area again, the flowers have returned! How beautiful is that? That deck was there for three years. These plants were dormant for three years, then just sprung up as soon as sun hit that soil again.

Kinda gives you hope... That if an eight foot tall sunflower plant can spring up after living under darkness for three years, then all kinds of things in life are possible.