Sunflowers vs. Squirrels

Beautiful Sunflowers

Sunflower hedge

Had you known me before 2011, you knew I thought squirrels were adorable. We had one side of our house with no plants to protect it from the afternoon sun. I planted sunflowers straight into the NC soil. Boy did they grow!!! They had huge heads and I had a ton of sunflower seeds. I read you were to harvest the seeds by covering the heads with paper bags......the heads were too big to fit into the lunch size paper bags so I tossed them up on my back deck. Next morning I discovered a squirrel eating sunflower seeds and I thought it was so adorable!!!!

I ended up sweeping the deck of all the sunflower shells the squirrel left behind. I decided the next year to plant the sunflowers in a circle. They grew tall with beautiful heads......one day, I looked out and two sunflower heads were snapped clean off. I did not understand. The next day I glanced out and caught a squirrel jumping from the tree above unto the top of the sunflower head. Being too heavy for the sunflower head, the squirrel snapped the head right off. I still didn't despise Squirrels.

It wasn't until I discovered where all my juicy plums were disappearing to did I detest the squirrels. Originally, we had blamed the deer. One day I discovered a squirrel merrily taking a bite out of each plum.

Lessons I've learned with sunflowers:
Don't plant near tree branches
The heads grow heavy and will eventually droop to one side due to the weight.

circle of sunfowers