Sunflowers

The sunflowers are impressive. I've got several plants that are approaching 12' tall while a few have 20 heads. Selecting for the most unique plants has produced an extravagant early crop.



Below: The house is hidden behind one stand of flowers. I've planted the next batch directly in front of the porch and they're coming along nicely.



Below: I like the effect of the sun backlighting the flowers. . . it kind of washes out the images. It makes them look nostalgic maybe.



Below: A couple of beetles behinds stick out of one sunflower. The stands of flowers are attracting a very large number of insects now that the days are very hot. I don't hang around long so I haven't seen what these beetles look like when they emerge from the flowers but I think they are common dung beetles.





Above: This flower has a lot of character as it slowly opens. It would be fun to get a time-lapse of the petals opening. . . but I'm not that ambitious.



Above and Below: The stand of flowers on the west side of the house is now in bloom. It is topping out at about 7'. It gets less water as I'm lazy about dragging the hoses around every day to water these plants.



Below: This is one of the tallest plants. The face is kind of squashed on the flower for now but it will open full and round over the next few days. To enter them in the fair you need a very wide face. . . it doesn't really matter how tall the plant grows its how big a head it makes that is important. This one will be very large.



Below: Look closely and you'll see a honey bee hovering in this image. There are thousands of honey bees in the flowers. I'm curious where they've built their hive.