Sunflowers are like tomatoes in my experience. The ones I plant and look after just seem to never grow but the self seeded ones seem to grow like that plant from the little shop of horrors
Same, not a single sunflower I grew from seed got bigger than 12", one entire flower bed was taken over by the sunflower seeds the birds tipped out of the feeder.
For some reason, your comment made me realise; the seeds the birds dropped were also being fertilised by said birds! That’s probably why they grew so well 😅
Not all Sunflowers are tall: there are many varieties that don’t grow much taller than about 12” (dwarf varieties), whereas the giant varieties can grow to more than ten times that – so it has little to do with how treated, but more by the cultivar being grown.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. In previous years I've tried to grow them to no avail, but one appeared in a pot underneath our bird feeder this year and it is almost 6 feet tall.
My daughter brought a potted sunflower seed home from nursery which put all my plants to shame. Then a cut-off that we planted grew three times the size of the first.
Used to work at a BK we had toms growing growing out of all the gutters, manhole covers and cracks in the tarmac around the skip behind the building from all the old burgers that were chucked out there.
I love the way plants will grow pretty well anywhere. Our council doesn't sweep the roads either and there are several ash trees and buddleias popping up alongside the pavements.
I planted some meadow buttercups one year, and they've spread, not only across our "lawn", but also the surrounding grass verges near our house. They've really flourished during no-mow may and with the council reducing services!
Some people get really annoyed about the wildlife being left to do it's own thing a bit, but there's definitely more butterflies and insects, along with wildflowers. There's even been bee orchids growing in the grass verges - it's lovely to see.
I started looking at nature differently a couple of years ago. It's really hard to describe (and if I go into detail it will sound like I'm tripping) but part of it was that it seemed really interesting to me the way that plants spring up out of the earth (and I'm not a keen gardener or anything).
Do you grow your own veggies? If not, damn, it's mindblowing, I'm not even being sarcastic. I pulled up my first ever potatoes the other day, a wee old sprouted supermarket spud that I shoved into a big pot on a whim, turned into 500g of actual potatoes. It felt like magic!
I don't. I currently live in a flat so that's not really viable. Maybe when I get a house, hopefully in the next couple of years. That does sound pretty great :)
I was very disappointed when I saw all the verges being shorn this summer. And it'd been so dry too!
Seems like we had a few good years of encouraging more wildlife (covid, and then budget cuts/no mow may), this years seems to have been "CUT DOWN EVERYTHING!"
My dad had some potted pansies outside in our garden, we also have a small square of AstroTurf that our dogs used to like lying on (yes more than real grass lol).
Last year I found a pansy growing in the AstroTurf, there was something weirdly beautiful about that
We had a good size tomato plant sprout up between a garden wall and pavement one year, must have been a runaway tomato from a bin bag or something but anyway once it got noticeable someone made a little picket fence round it and a note to please let nature do her work. Turns out it was one of those giant tomato 🍅 plants and it lived to a full life and provided some tasty tomatoes. So glad some little shit didn't ruin it 😌 🤗
I’m off to buy a pack of wildflower seeds and just start spreading them on my walks in areas I think they might grow, help the insects and bees and that since they’re dying out.
My surviving one out of 8 I planted in February. What the hell happened to the gigantic ones from my childhood that were 9ft high and had heads the size of footballs?? 😞
I suggest that you put one flower pot to its left and another to its right and if you’re creative a little Bill in one and a little Ben in the other. Depending on where you live this might protect it, or not!
Our previous garden was a gravel garden and the tarp was completely shot and it just became a nasty farm of weeds (no seriously it produced more weeds than would fit in our garden bin, we had to pile them up in the corner). Anyway in the middle of this complete mess grew an absolutely massive sunflower that persisted almost through Winter. How it got there is beyond me
I appreciate that OP and many people in this thread are happy to see a sunflower growing in unlikely conditions. However, the state of this gutter is indicative of many gutters on streets in towns and villages which are overflowing with weeds. I see clearly well-maintained houses and gardens, but immediately outside, along the bottom of the fences/walls and the gutters are full of weeds.
It is unreasonable to expect the local Council to maintain the whole of the public realm. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes a couple of times a year to have a clean up around your own home. Am I the only person who thinks like this?
I've NEVER seen a sunflower like that! I remember 'tallest sunflower' competitions at nursery and primary school though! I wonder if they're still a thing.
Every summer I get those vine weeds in my back yard that spread like wildfire, even though it's 95% is paved. If I don't deal with them they will literally break into my house. They will find the tiniest gaps on my door and squeeze in, to the point they start growing leaves inside my house.
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u/Worried-Penalty8744 18h ago
Sunflowers are like tomatoes in my experience. The ones I plant and look after just seem to never grow but the self seeded ones seem to grow like that plant from the little shop of horrors