Everything I've got so far is scribbled down on graph paper, but I'm definitely getting somewhere. Basically my thought is spreading life through a small stellar system, strategically using certain plants to fix certain nutrients and terraform planets one by one until the whole system is pretty and hospitable for all your space bee friends. This obviously makes a lot of sense.
I like the sunflower QWOP idea, but I agree that it's maybe not the right direction, if only because there doesn't seen to be much further you can go with it.