Rewilding My Lot

Very early in my time here, before I had much of anything planted, I was blessed with an abundance of volunteer annual sunflowers. There were two types: Common Sunflower (Helianthus annuus), and Beach Sunflower (Helianthus debilis). Those sunflowers have reseeded themselves every year since and where they are not in the way, I have let them stay — they are popular with birds and insects as food and shelter.

In 2024, I added a third kind of sunflower — Maximilian Sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani) — which is a perennial.

The Maximilians grew to their full height for the first time last year, which turned out to be at least twice my 62 inches!

Once the blooms started to open, then the stems drooped and splayed out over a wide area.

In their natural context, they would be held more upright by tall prairie grasses growing next to them. Mine don’t have that support, so this year I plan to cut them short mid-season to reduce their final height.

The old stems died over the winter, and recently were cleared away when I trimmed the garden back for spring. Now I can see that the original cluster of plants has grown larger since last year. There are at least twice, maybe three times the number of potential stems.