Each of the past several summers I have tried to grow sunflowers every way imaginable. I’ve started them in pots, planted them in the garden, put them in pots, and on year out of frustration I just dumped a couple packets of seeds into a hole in the ground.

It’s silly really, this obsession with sunflowers. I love them for some reason and I desperately want to grow some of my own, but I have yet to see a single sunflower grow on my property. This year I thought I had the problem solved when I started about 20 seeds inside and most of the grew well for months until spring came and I could move them outside. I watched over them like a mother hen and they came along nicely and I was able to move several into the garden where they found a nice home.

Things were going great until some creature decided to make lunch out of my sunflowers. Several plants had all the flowers eaten and two were cut off like felled trees.

BUT one has survived and is about 5 feet tall at the moment (these are the huge sunflowers which should grow to be 12 feet tall). The creature has obviously takes some bites out of the leaves, but the sunflower is still growing. I don’t know if it will make it, but this is the longest one has survived for me yet.

It’s all folly as I could easily go to a store and buy beautiful sunflowers any time I want, but now it’s become a battle to try and get some to grow. Hopefully my persistence will pay off someday.