Tall and Short, Big and Small

The thing I miss most about not owning a house is not having a garden to play in. These pictures were taken in August 2001. The sunflowers were volunteers. We had planted seeds the previous year. They didn't do very well but provided some feed for the birds. Four stalks came up the next spring (2001) and produced a weird combination of flowers. One stalk had just the one flower but it was huge. The other three stalks gave us all those smaller flowers. About a week after I took these pictures a storm came through - high winds and lots of rain - and the stalks were blown over. Again, the birds enjoyed the seeds that winter. They are on a raised bed that is about a foot high. My guestimation is that the plants were at least ten feet tall. But then, at the bottom of the stalk, one little flower bloomed, all by itself. It was, maybe, 18" tall.