Winter seeds for the birds

Last fall, I cut down all the volunteer sunflowers that had grown in my community garden plot, and brought them home. I propped them at the top of the backyard, hoping the birds would appreciate them. This morning, I finally saw that they do! A few chickadees were picking on the sunflower heads. It’s nice […]

In which I inflict a grainy photo of a goldfinch on you

The sunflower patch is getting so ratty looking, I’m considering cutting them all down. But just when I begin to contemplate such drastic action, I come round the corner of the house and get rewarded by the up and down swoops of a goldfinch flying away. I can’t cut the sunflowers down yet! There are […]

Sunflower weather

Now that the heat has hit, I can barely keep up with the flowers. This sunflower bloomed a few days ago, and today already the flowerhead is busy making seeds. The bees have done their work. Traditional varieties of sunflowers are great bee flowers. They give so generously of their pollen, that bees get covered […]

Wild harvest

Poor old Sonny the Sunflower! Somebody knocked him over and chawed his face off. Maybe the raccoons are peeved that the bird feeder is empty at night.

Sunflower buffet

Want to eat from the sunflower? Take a number!

Pretty, pretty sunflowers

The sunflowers are so pretty right now. Some of them are dressing up in russety orange. Honeybees come and meticulously work their way around the rings, getting every bit of pollen and nectar from the flowers. And when the sunflowers go to seed, forget how ratty they look. Goldfinches will arrive and it’s pretty all […]

Bee approved, mystery plant

There is no more doubt about the mystery plants. It’s a sunflower. Several sunflowers, that is. Everything about them says “Sunflower”: the broad leaves, the flat yellow disks, the mathematical spiral in the centers, the honeybee, the green Agapostemon bee, and more bees to come.

Mystery Plants

Got a couple of mystery plants. One is new, one is old. I have a guess for both, but I’m never sure. The new one is a several ones all sprouting near where a small sunflower grew last year. Is it another sunflower? Or a Black-Eyed Susan? It might even be a coneflower. Or something […]

Living on thin moss

Some sort of sunflower appears to have found just enough of a foothold in the moss on a stone wall. I’ve been wrong before about “sunflowers“, but it’s too high up for me to see anything but a yellow composite flower. It might as well be a sunflower. It even seems to like the heat!

Sunflowers keep on giving

I come to praise my sunflowers, not to pull them up and compost them. When they were blooming, the sunflowers offered pollen to the bees. When they were dying, seeds to the goldfinches. The plants have finished dying and dried up, but they’re not done.