Don't You Love Bright Yellow Sunflowers?

I also grew black oil sunflower plants (by accident).  I have bird feeders and fill some of them with black oil sunflower seeds.  The birds often flick some of the seeds out of the feeders and onto the ground. 

One day I noticed small plants underneath the feeders, which later turned out to be sunflowers.  These sunflower plants are much shorter than the giant variety and have smaller flowers, but are still pretty. 

Just think - I feed the birds and they help to plant sunflowers!

This dried flower head of a giant sunflower is drooping with the weight of the seeds.  I cut off  some of the sunflower heads and laid them out on a table in the yard to continue drying.  I later pulled out some of seed shells and cracked them open.  I ate some of the raw seeds but let the birds have most of them.

I left some of the heads alone and eventually the seeds dropped to the ground and will grow into sunflowers next year.  Of course, the birds ate some of them. too.  

Dried out sunflowers are not very attractive if you've got them in your yard or garden.  You may want to cut the stalks down and let thee heads dry somewhere else.  But watch where you put them because you certainly don't want to attract mice and other rodents!