Sunflowers

The first summer we lived in our Carrollton house, one sunflower randomly grew in our front yard.  I was very delighted.

2022

In the fall, I collected some of the seeds and planted them in the backyard.  Which often equates to me throwing seeds into the air and hoping for the best.  

We ended up with about 5-7 big sunflowers.  Some were probably from the front sunflower and others were likely from bought seeds and/or uneaten bird/squirrel food. 

 

2023

In the Spring of 2024, many, many baby sunflowers started sprouting up.  

2024

Though it's hard for me to do, I aborted quite a few of them.  

But we still ended up with a forest of sunflowers.

2024

It was beautiful but messy.

In terms of wildlife, it was wonderful.  Especially in terms of bees. 

In terms of being able to walk in our backyard...not so great.

In terms of Tim being able to move the lawnmower through the backyard to get to the front from the garage...not so great.

We got a stern letter from the HOA at one point.  I had to trim things down a bit.  Which I had planned to do anyway...as the weather got cooler.  Our HOA tends to have unpleasant timing.  

This next spring, I'm going to try to thin things out much more.  And I'm expecting a shitload of babies.

My aim is to have a small section of the yard crowded with sunflowers but have other areas where we can walk, let other things grow, etc.

As for the dead sunflowers, I've been working a lot to cut the remnants into small pieces, leaving them in the yard...rather than filling bags and bags and bags and bags of landscaping bags.  I love doing it.  It's a great thing to do while listening to audio books, podcasts, Neighbours, etc.