B.C. man attempts world's largest Ukrainian flag made out of flowers

A Victoria man is hoping to break the record for world's largest Ukrainian flag made entirely out of flowers.

About 15 years ago, Sahasi Erven was going about his day when he experienced an overwhelming "calling" of sorts.

"Make the most intensely beautiful place on Earth," the now 64-year-old recalls feeling.

Although Sahasi has worked as a carpenter all his life, it wasn’t a beautiful building he felt compelled to make.

"That vision, or whatever you want to call it, said you can make it right here," Sahasi says, pointing to the small boulevard in front of him.

He felt an urge to transform the lifeless section of soil beside the sidewalk with flowers.

"It didn’t matter that I knew nothing about plants at the time," Sahasi smiles.

He enlisted the help of friends and neighbours and turned the boulevard into a bounty of blossoms, including more than 10,000 spring bulbs.

Now Sahasi says he spends more than 1,000 hours during the spring and summer tending to the garden, helping the neighbourhood blossom into a more joyful place.

"The greatest joy is giving joy," Sahasi smiles. "And I’m a greedy fellow; I like a lot of joy!"

Which brings us to Sahasi’s reaction watching the war in Ukraine on TV, and seeing so much despair

"It’s madness! It’s madness," he says, holding his hands to his head. "Because I’m a lover not a fighter."

NEW FLAG IDEA BEGINS TO BLOSSOM

So Sahasi and a few of his friends sourced 500 yellow and blue-ish plants and created a Ukranian flag out of flowers along the sidewalk. They also arranged white flowers in the shape of letters to spell Ukraine.

"How can you not love a flag of flowers?" Sahasi smiles.

But it just didn’t feel like there was enough love here to counter so much fear over there.

"We’ve got to do more!" Sahasi recalls thinking. "Let’s make the biggest flower flag in the world!"

At this point, you should know Sahasi’s been involved in a few world record attempts, like when he spent 50 hours shooting a bow and arrow non-stop more than 10,000 times.

So he started doing what you do to get these sorts of things done.

"We got a permit and insurance and then we went out to look for flowers," Sahasi says. "They were not blue and yellow flowers!"

So, Sahasi had a Flag of Flowers website made and invited anyone who was interested to help grow and deliver the appropriately coloured potted plants to attempt the record.

So far, people have committed to supplying 3,000 plants. The goal is to assemble 100,000 blue and yellow plants into the Ukrainian flag on the grounds of Victoria’s George Jay Elementary School near the end of June.

"If there’s more love around there’s more peace around," Sahasi smiles. "If there’s more peace around, there’s less war around."

And if there’s less war around, perhaps there’ll be more people around who also feel like they live in "the most intensely beautiful place on earth."