I’ve got another T&S gig so mornings and evenings will find me across the plateau to the east and up and down their scary mesa. And I was on my way home from that this morning when I came upon a most unexpected sight…
A sunflower?
A sunflower! What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?
I mean, yeah. A wet monsoon brings out all the flowers, including varieties we might not otherwise see for years. But we don’t normally have sunflowers. I’m betting some bird accidentally dropped a treat from a feeder on this very spot just in time for the rain, because otherwise that flower has no earthly business being way out here.
A sunflower?
“Life uh…. finds a way” – Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park
According to the text on the bag of bird food, the seeds have been treated to prevent them from reproducing. Looking under our feeder, it’s obvious the seeds can’t read.
Gather the sunflower head and scatter the seeds when they dry. You will get more. That’s how I improved my echinacea and black eyed Susan totals.
One day leaving the property I saw a raven lift off from the drive near the gate. Since it was convenient I took a look at what he’d been working at – it was a pecan. The nearest pecan trees that bear are about 6 miles away (AtRF). Mine are nearer but nowhere near productivity – yet.
We put out sunflower seed in a couple of bird feeders and volunteers are common – but the assorted grazers usually don’t let them get past the seedling stage.
I’m always tossing out various seeds to see if I can generate some volunteers – old serrano and habanero dried peppers, a bag of hollyhock seed from the guy who runs the feed store, date, cherry, peach and apricot pits. So far I’ve got nothing to show for the effort.
That reminds me – I have a bag of arugula pods I’d meant to toss out this year before the monsoon. I read an article a couple years ago that there were volunteer patches of arugula along I8 between Yuma and Gila Bend. I figured if it could grow wild there it should survive here. I wouldn’t complain to a free, spicey salad that I don’t have to tend!