We chopped down most of our sunflowers

On Monday afternoon and into the evening we finally got around to cutting down / trimming our Sunflowers as per the notice that we received from the city last week.

Last Tuesday or Wednesday we were given notice that our Sunflowers that grow in the boulevard in front of our house were causing an obstruction and had to be trimmed to three feet in height.

They weren’t obstructing anything, but I wasn’t about to find out what the fine might be for not complying with the bylaw order.

So on Monday, Chris started torturing our sunflowers by cutting down the biggest one which I’m sure was at least 14 feet tall. We had to go out for an appointment in the afternoon so we didn’t finish trimming the rest of the sunflowers – perhaps 20 in all – until we returned in the early evening.

What a shame.

Some of the sunflowers grew multiple sunflowers at various heights so there are still some flowers growing on the three foot tall stumps. Still, I don’t know if the sunflowers will survive as we cut so much off the plants that they might just die down now.

People passing by kept stopping to ask us what we were doing and when we told them what and why they couldn’t understand what the problem was. The whole neighborhood loves our sunflowers and it’s a fact that we grow them and other flowers in the boulevard to help beautify the neighborhood.

One of my site visitors had suggested, when I first posted about this city bylaw order, that we take the cut sunflowers and hang them from a window so that the birds could still use the flowers. I took that suggestion and expanded on it.

We have two flower boxes hanging outside the two windows at the front of our enclosed front porch. Since I didn’t feel well most of the summer I never did get around to planting annuals in the window boxes so they were bare all summer.

I decided to stick several of the cut flowers on their stems in the window boxes. It actually looks quite nice and the flowers are holding up well. I scattered a few of the remaining flowers in the garden bed below the window boxes and the flowers that had been almost finished or that were starting to dry into seed heads were cut off and scattered in the boulevard at the base of the sunflower plants.

I’m sure the neighborhood squirrels will scatter the dried out sunflower heads throughout the neighborhood. Did you know they nibble on the whole head? I find bitten sunflower heads in the strangest places sometimes!

The nicest cut sunflowers were set aside and when we were done cleaning up our mess I brought them inside and put them in two vases.

I figure we might as well enjoy the flowers for as long as we can.

Stupid city bylaw.