The Sunflower Saga

 Our Sunflower Bush as it turns out. I wrote about the trials and tribulations of our sunflower seedlings a little while ago and this one has survived to full growth and adulthood so to speak.

 

 

Even yesterday's winds were not successful in taking it out but I did cheat a little as I strung a rope from the wooden fence to the plant and then back again giving it a little better chance at managing to last the entire season. The bees have been extremely busy in this enormous plant for the last couple of weeks but particularly this week when so many of the blooms did finally open. A few of the sunflower heads are on their way to seed so hopefully some good viewing of the local birds as they swoop in to take their share of the sunflower seeds. 

The sunflowers in the garden have also grown and flowered but are somewhat stunted under the Black Walnut tree. Nevertheless the bees are busy working them as well so more food for the birds that fly in every day to check out the bird feeder which has little in it these days (more of an enticement) and then fly about all the fruit, vegetable and garden flowers pollinating everywhere. 

This has been a great summer for the flowering plants. The mallow has never been so covered with flowers. All the rest have also done well although they have shared the ground with vegetables for the first time in a while. 

Looks like rain again and we could still use a lot of that. The ground is still rather dry but our grass is green once again and the areas that got burned out and replanted with grass seed are producing new grass.