Today was not the day to be a top heavy, shallow rooted, annual.
To prevent the almost inevitable toppling of the sunflower forest and the consequent squashing of the less stout souls below, my first job this morning was to dig up the giants. First I had to remove the extensive corsetry that was valiantly attempting to hold them in place, although they were already at a jaunty angle. All it took was a quick nudge from a fork beneath and we had a controlled felling. I then passed them over to Lady Mantle who cut off the worthy flowers which she lined out on a low wall.
It may have come to your attention that it was a tad breezy today, and has not yet relented. I sincerely hope that the howling and crashing coming from outside is the wind and not an early Halloween visitation. For all the weather’s vigour it was pleasantly balmy and, after the sun shook off the Saharan dust, it was bright and blue skied. This made for unexpectedly good working conditions. Of course everything had to weighted down and throwing weeds into a trug was a miss and miss affair. Later I chased the cut sunflowers around the garden, scooping them up and taking them into the house. Lady M. had been diverted.
The journey back was scattered with twigs and small branches and the odd young tree that had been battered just a little more than it could cope with. I was glad to get home.
I hope you stayed safe and damage free.
Off The Edge Gardening 
OK…… To prevent the toppling of the plants, you toppled the plants….. makes sense. Could you not have just cut them hard back? Like we do with perennials at this time of year?
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What happened was, I made a mistake and wrote “perennial” instead of “annual”. Now does it make sense? I have amended the post and no one will ever find out ….. 😉
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But now anyone who reads my comment will think I’m stupid. Unless they read your comment as well, of course.
COME ON EVERYBODY, READ GILL’S COMMENT TOO …! 🙂
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Quite, the possibilities are endless!
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By the way, did you get blown about today?
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Whoops. Truncated my reply and cut off the “How were things with you (annual perennials aside)?”
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Great day, dark start and spooky red sun, then really warm and sunny and windy, still pretty windy here, but then again it often is. The wind is from the SWish so isn’t as bad for us as the northerleys.
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Can’t reply to you so I replied to me. Like you did instead of replying to me. 😉
It’s been a weird day. Dawn was at about 10.30. By 11.00 blazing sunshine and T-shirt weather. Anne @ Veddw reported dark skies (Portuguese smoke?). People in Cardiff reported orange skies (Saharan sand?) and some between Cardiff and me were, again, black. West of me had black skies. Here it stayed sunny right until this evening (when the sun set, of course, and it got a bit darker). The 45+mph winds that should have arrived around midday put in a brief appearance at about 4pm. Now I’d call it a healthy breeze.
But we all know that the weather never reads the damned forecast like it’s supposed to.
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Ohh, the tropical weather is a bit weird and the winds feel like the hot breath of Ophelia? Creepy. Hope all is well and someone had a fabulous vase of Sunflowers.
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Very creepy, especially with the red sun! All is fine here. Some of the sunflowers went in vases, some were being dried.
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Eating the seeds or growing more? The orange skies were on the news here.
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Unfortunately they weren’t mature enough to have set seed, we need to sow them earlier next year!
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When I read the title, I pictured you with a chainsaw. Glad to hear it was easier than that. What’s up with that Ophelia, anyway? I thought hurricanes were supposed to go the other way.
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Me and a chainsaw, a very scary thought! I know what you mean about hurricanes, it was a bit of a burnt out one, but all the same. Much calmer here today, but Scotland is getting it at the moment. 😦
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Oh, the poor thing. I wrote to someone a while back about some sunflowers I cut and brought in, only to come home to a dining room full of finches! What a mess! There was seed, frass, feathers and other ‘stuff’ that finches leave behind all over the place!
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That is hilarious! I can just see the picture and your face when you found them. 🙂
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It is funny now, and might have been funnier if it happened to someone else, but at the time . . . WOW!
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Thankfully my garden survived intact. Ophelia was less turbulent here than forecast.😊
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That is good news!
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I use to hate having to go to work when the wind was so strong. I would prefer cold or rain to cope with.( so long as it wasn’t below-5!).
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I don’t mind the cold or the wind, but the rain gets me down sometimes. This is unfortunate as I live in North Devon!
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I like the idea of taking a chainsaw to sunflowers. We didn’t get any wind here, just the weird ‘end of time’ sulpherous yellow glow.
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Yes we had the odd light too, more wind on the way *sigh* Hope you escape again.
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Oh my, they look so sad and droopy
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There will be more next year!
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