Growing giant sunflowers is a passion. When they are ready to turn into sunflower seeds, the petals fall off and you can harvest the “meat,” or flowerhead. Unfortunately, when you have a child who doesn’t understand the process, they may donate it to charity prematurely. In this case, the friendly neighborhood squirrel was gifted the the giant sunflower head, minus the petals, and he had a party.
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When this Mom brought a sunflower pod into the house, she had plans to roast the seeds for a healthy snack. Her child had a different idea and took the pod out to their patio table. By the time Mom noticed, their hungry squirrel neighbor was happily gobbling up the sunflower.
You can’t even be mad. Obviously the squirrel was dying from starvation, right? Sunflower seeds are a favorite treat for squirrels. When given a choice of delicacies in your bird feeder, they will grab the sunflower seeds first.
Giant sunflowers can grow from three to ten feet tall. The diameter of the flowerhead’s center can reach 12 inches in the right conditions. As the flower blooms, yellow petals surround the brown or black central core. The core will mature into seeds.
Sunflowers begin each day by facing east, and the flower will rotate throughout the day to follow the sun. There is an old myth that sunflowers will turn to face one another on cloudy days, but that is not true. They will follow the sun through hazy or cloudy skies from east to west. This solar tracking habit is known as heliotropism. A pollinated sunflower will stop tracking the sun, but will remain facing to the east.
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