Sunflowers

Gardens need sunflowers not only for the simple beauty but for attracting beneficial pollinators. Both of these photos were taken last year. Since this year's growing season has closed I thought I would start sharing older photos.

Sunflower

I feed the birds and some of the mixture contains sunflower seeds. This is just regular, run of the mill sunflower seed or black oil sunflower seed. Each year I get volunteer sunflowers growing in the gardens and whenever possible, I leave them be. This volunteer sunflower is just a regular one. The black oil sunflowers are much smaller. The head will droop as the seeds mature. Despite the drooping head, birds will have the seeds picked clean in no time.

Jade Sunflower

The Jade Sunflower was planted from seeds bought online. The petals are a pale green hence its name. This sunflower got a lot of comments because it was so different. I kept some of the seeds before the birds got them with the intentions of planting in the 2006 season but never got around to it. I'll plant them in the spring of 2007.

Which ever way you look at it, sunflowers should be part of any garden :)

Happy Gardening

Garden Gnome