Sunflowers!

Normally I would post something about the horses, but, frankly, I'm tired of snow and mud! And, my sunflowers at our desert home are blooming, so I decided to add some COLOR this morning and share them with you! These are all out in front, next to our fence by the street. It gets full sun daily and is nice and warm. I planted these in December. Now, mind you, the Southern California desert has a 365 day growing season. Right now our farmers are growing cool season crops like lettuce, carrots, onions, broccoli, and radishes. But last year I planted my mammoth sunflowers in January and they were 7 feet tall by Spring! I honestly don't know why these are so much smaller, but they are! Last year's crop towered above the top of the fence line. These haven't even made it there yet, but they sure are pretty! I also stopped after school and frequently pulled seeds off the wild desert sunflowers, which are more compact, but have many blooms on them. For some reason, they don't germinate as well as the domestic variety, although after our 5 days of rain, even they should be sprouting now that we are having clear weather again...I'll have to update you on those seeds. I just broadcast them out front. I haven't seen any of them sprout yet, and I threw out hundreds of seeds, but maybe they needed a massive amount of rainfall, like we just got! We got our yearly rain total last week in 5 days! Yup! Can you believe it? Anyway, enjoy the sunflowers' color and have a great day! I'm driving up to the mountains to buy 2 bags of sweet feed for the horses, since nights up there are once again in the freezing range.