my sunflower at work

Excellent ;o)

Love it :o)

F(r)antastic! :)

It's Helianthus :o)
Well done to get it that tall.

I don't remember doing any special to it, Hywel - maybe my non-interference helped it - I try to work to a system of "benign neglect" - I've killed more plants with kindness than I've ever killed through actual neglect - the more I do, the more chance there is of me doing something wrong.

Brilliant, it looks wonderful there.

i don't remember what came of it: know that I wanted to save the seeds, but I really have no idea how it ended: maybe that was during one of my sicknesses

You will have to grow some again this summer, in your garden! The squirrels will just lurve those seeds!!

lol won't they just. there's a green behind our gardens, but the only two gates are in public areas, so they're severely padlocked. the green on the other side of the block has doors, and seats and all. I'm going to try to get a gate put in my fence, so I can get on to the green, to walk on grass and hug a tree - and put the feeders out there, too. and maybe some wild flowers - i've got packs of butterfly-friendly and bee-friendly and nowhere to grow them. Sunclowers would definitely fit into the category of "outside", unless I got mini ones, which reather defeats the object

True. What's your space like, much room for pots or could you get a mate! to build a raised bed, in tiers, against the wall I thought I spied?

the garden's two metres long on one side, three metres on the other. paved all over, apart from a tiny strip around the edge, and that only goes down six inches, as I found out when I tried to dig it! layer of bricks underneath; nfi what a foot-wide, six-inch-deep "bed" is supposed to be good for, apart from weeds.

So everything hast o be pots. I did think about a raised bed, but they're all too low - average a foot? and too big.

I found some tables on eBay that were rated to take 300kg, so I got two, which are now at the end of the garden (*s* you mustn't have got to the "assebly" pix yet!) and last month I bought another for the "side garden", directly opposite hte back door. I was using stacked plastic crates for that, but they're going to be 'tufa'd when I can

So there's raised, and also a lot of hidden storage space, which don't half save some room in the visible part!

The end tables have 3-tier plant stands on them - they're not very deep shelves, so can't take large pots, but they're giong to figure in my landscaped mini-garden - need hills for my alpines!

sounds the way to go!

i'm trying to get an asymmetrical look; nature don't do straight lines. I did look at "grengrocer's grass" to drape over the plant stands, to hide the plastic, but I don't know how weatherproof that is. and, of course, using the stands lets the cold in from underneath as well

How tall did it reach?

We estimated about 15 feet. I tried somethng I'd read in an old Scout book: held a stick up to the height of the flower, moved my hand down to line up with the base, then turned the stick sideways, lined my hand up again and gest ured someone back and forth until they lined up with the tip. then he paced it to the wall and reckoned the distance. all very precise, lol