Measurements from Invergiant, er, Invergarry

Ok ok, I admit it's not real. The official highly incurate measurements from Invergarry are as follows .... Higher than Jenny can reach on tippy toes but lower than the forth branch up on the apple tree, er, probably about 7 foot 5 1/4 inches..... not a winner I'm afraid.

Happy in Caithness

Good effort!

The measurement of the Greendykes sunflowers took place today with the help of my camera shy assistants.


My tallest sunflower is a skinny specimen that defied the odds and healed itself after it severed it's neck on the summer house guttering. The official height was recorded as 8ft 2 inches (249cm). Not as high as any of the Laggan sunflowers but not too shabby at all!!

It's official!

Official measuring has taken place in Laggan, courtesy of Ginger and Mrs J, as witnessed by myself (and all passers by who may have wondered what an earth we were up to....)

First to be subjected to the tape measure was my finest specimen and hopeful for the title of skinniest yet tallest Sunflower in the Highlands, (nay! the UK, are you reading this Mr Field hey hey!! read it and weep!!!) ahem... as i was saying...its not the winning its the taking part that counts.

My fellow was second from the right in prime house flowerbed position, which Ginger and Mrs J agreed was level with the guttering on the roof, so this proved a handy anchor point for the tape and i beieve an acurate reading of its supreme gianormousness and collossal hugeness was achieved, courtesy of the measuring mastery of Ginger....

As you can see, it came in at about 3 metres 50cm or 13 foot 8... am i reading that right?? I'm not so good with feet...

So next up we took a stroll over to Lilac Cottage to wonder at both Ginger and Mrs J's sunflower collection, admired and envied by bed and breakfasters the world over. Unfortunately Ginger's contenders, while looking splendid and sunny, had already been trounced by Mrs J's fine fellows who were looking over the fence and down onto Ginger's lot... So, it was for Mrs J's biggest and best that the measuring tape was called for, and Ginger made sure it was a fair and square measurement and no cheating!!

While they were at it a measurement of the width of a flowerhead was also taken and officially photographed, by official photographer and impartial observer of the day... that would be me....

So Mrs J's top specimen reached the dizzying hieghts of 2 metres 73cm, or ten foot 8??? Those damn feet again.... The flowerhead was about 20cm diameter.... who knows how many feet that is, its less than one anyway... oh inches! I just remembered inches!

So with all hieghts and breadths officially logged the tape measure is now put away. However, Ginger did such i fine job of it, i think i can offer and recomend his services to Sunflower growers everywhere, at very reasonable hourly rates of course.....

Do let us know via the blog what your own measurements are, and Lisa can make a graph or something, and then next year, if you are all willing to do it again, well we can conpare and contrast... or is this just getting too sad and geeky...??!!

Hey hey! happy measuring!

Local rivalry

Laggan proves to be a hotbed of great sunflower growth! That must mean we get a lot of sun here... it's nothing to do with the rain i'm sure....

Here is Mrs J with her splendid and very tall sunflowers! Official measurements of all Laggan sunflower contenders is iminent: Ginger, Mrs J and I will undertake the task just as soon as we have found a tape measure long enough and secured insurance for sending Ginger up a rickety ladder to those scary heights.

I hope everyone is taking a measurement of your very own contender, i believe there may be prizes! No expense spared, Miss Lisa and i are planning a trip to the pound shop as we speak... Please, before they start to shrink and die, measure them up, we can do graphs and pie charts and things, and if nothing else can send all the stats to Andy/evil statistic and he could put us in one of his stats books as an example to young minds...

Newsflash- Laggan has flowers at last!

Click on the image to see it better...

And the Winner could be ...

And I still have one that has yet to flower and is making me consider changing my name to Jack just so that I can climb it and steal the giant's golden egg-laying goose.

andy

Some have got secondary flowers ...

Mind you, it's not all doom and gloom. Some have got these sort of little secondary flowers ...

Death

I don't come here for a month and suddenly everyone's flowers leap into life. As predicted a month ago, while you all have sunny blooms, mine are floppy and dying. I also forgot to take photos when they were in their prime. Enjoy their death throws though ...

Still Waiting!

Well I'm starting to feel a wee bit impatient as it would seem my sunflowers may well be the last to show any flowers. They have, however, been through alot and I'll be so chuffed if they make it to flowering.
They survived a major hail battering which left them with big holes all over their leaves a couple of months back, a bit of drought when I went down to visit my folks and the bearded-one was left with strict watering instructions which he forgot for a day or so and then thankfully remembered and "rescued" them, then I "rescued" them recently when a long, hot, sunny day left them rather limp again, a couple of their leaves have been attacked by tiny caterpillars plus a bit of rubbing on the walls (it's a toss up between wall damage or wind damage) plus various shifts to avoid Caithness winds. This weekend was the most worrying...They're now showing buds and I'm getting excited to finally see the flowers. But the wind got up and I had to keep checking them and trying to find the most sheltered spot, which I thought I'd done, but the wind shifted direction slightly overnight and when I went out yesterday they were horizontal on the ground. I moved them again and I'm hoping that they'll staighten out a bit in a day or two and then...glorious flowers (and maybe some starjumps to celebrate).

Anyhoo... the pictures show they looked before the weekend. (I'm holding the Dwarf next to the Giant).

Bigger than my starjump...

... but not as big or as healthy looking as RTL's!!

Having to use tree ties now.

Well the sunflowers planted in the open have been breaking the plastic ties that secured them so am now using tree ties. The one against the fence has taken a battering with the wind rocking it back and forth along the fence with the result that it has lost most of its lower leaves. Still --according to the independent witnesses--my next door neighbour and brother---it measures 9feet 3 inches to the centre of the flower bud.

There are four planted in the open---two Mammoth and two Russian Giants. On one of the Mammoths the flower head is hanging down ---top heavy. The Russian behind my brother --according to him--measures 2.7 metres--which I make to be 8feet 10 inches. The other Russian in that group hasn't achieved as much height and am beginning to doubt the seed I received from South Laggan!!! Have a similar problem with two ornamental gourds and a pumpkin that were also sent down---one of the gourds is developing more like a pumpkin. Is this deliberate horticultural sabotage?

The secret to suberb sunflowers.....

....why it's fresh Scottish air of course. Available at all good stores (and in some value ranges).


--Matt

Requesting permission to land...

Sun seedy goings on!

Between my last post and today I am a sunflower down!
Its not toppled, its not broken, its gone!
The whole 104cm of it and its pot.
Whats even more strange is... whoever or whatever has taken it left the 'good' one. The one with the flowering heid.
I am now wondering if its been taken to be cared for. Has social services come and taken it as I have been neglecting?
Hmmmm, the mystery continues.

Hello Petal

Yay! My first flower!

Leaf size for comparison ...not even half that of Helen's mighty giants!!

Doubled in size

My sunflowers have near doubled in size since I first measured them. They are now a staggeringly humongous 105cm tall.

Not bad for still being in a small pot surrounded by motorbikes.

One has the makings of a little flower. Its exciting times.

height?

who needs height?! Leaf size is where its at!!
(no photoshopping i promise)

It's either the Highland water or we've got an expert in Adobe Photoshop!

Well done if it is that size Matt/Jenny but I am a wee bit sceptical. For a start we don't see the whole plant. Jenny could be either holding a pot or is actually on her knees. When you mentioned Inverness it immediately entered my mind about a lot of photos that have emanated from around there about some monster in the Loch. Not your work as well perchance? The leaves also look rather small compared to the rest of us. Could be you've got the dreaded Japanes Bindweed instead of a sunflower---better destroy it before the Ministry of Agriculture, never mind Inverness Airport, move in!

Compared to yours my attempts are nowhere as large. Problem with the one at the fence is it only gets the sun(when it's there) in the afternoon because of a cherry tree screening it. It has still managed to get over six feet. Wooden slats are 6 inches wide and gap is the same.

I'm useless with Photoshop so have had to include the unadulterated photos.

Flying High

Here's a wee photo of one of our flowers along with my wife, Jenny. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting my delightful wife I should probably mention that she is over 9ft tall - she used to be in the circus and everything.



It's not all good news though - we've been in trouble with the authorities - Inverness airport have told us to stop watering our sunflowers because they are interfering with their airspace and the planes are having to use a different approach! I haven't heard of any similar problems down in South Laggan though.

--Matt

Flower power

Despite a battering from the wild winds a few weeks ago (that resulted in a near death experience for my sunflowers) they are now nearly as tall as the clothes pole!


There's significant damage to the lower leaves...


But look! The flowers are on their way!!


Hurrah!!

... oh no it's not!

My Sunflower is much bigger than yours ...

Here's the pride of the bunch (height wise), I'm 180cm tall, so I reckon this one is at about 2 meters high and not yet ready to flower ..... if it makes you feel better, mine will all be dead and rotting when you all have beautiful flowers everywhere.

Gardening Tips

It seems that England beat Scotland not just in football and Rugby but also in sunflower growing (no harm in digging up hundreds of years of Scot-Anglo hatred now is there?). As us English are obviously all smug patronising bastards, I thought I'd give you Scots some growing tips:-)

The clue to growing sunflowers is in the name - they need sun to flower. In Brighton we have it ... don't worry though I'm sure you'd win the Rainflower growing competition:-)

(For those of you who don't appreciate my poor taste in humour, please don't send Mel Gibson down here to rip out my heart ...).

Heatwave in Brighton

Thanks to the recent heatwave in brighton, and my general excellent gardening skills, I now have a garden full of Triffids. The BBC are doing a remake of 'Day of the Triffids' and have contacted me to borrow some of my sunflowers as props.

Here's the proof

Disaster - but i think its fixed now?!

Last week I got so carried away with it being sunny (for a change) that I forgot to water my sunflowers!!
6 days went by and I looked over to see 2 dry sticks with yellow crinkled leaves. Oh oh!

A mad dash to the kitchen sink with the measuring jug and 2 litres of water each I could only hope they would recover from this drought.

They got 2 litres a day for 5 days and little prune with the kitchen scissors and things are looking good. Green stalks, green leaves, tall, happy and swaying in the little breeze we have.
They also have a new home as motorbike number 4 has moved in to their patch.

I am hoping to re-pot soon. Slighty worried I am being over adventurous in this green fingered malark. Don't know if I can revive them for a 2nd time round!!

Whimsy is heartily encouraged!

Miss Lisa invites you to add your own fanciful photos!

Antics

.

Greetings all! My sunflowers appear to be significantly smaller than everyone else’s…. So far!! I have high hopes- literally. They seem to be doing quite well in that they have nice big leaves, just what you need to suck up those rays and grow as big as a house….

I picked my best candidates and planted them out in prime sun spot and favourite cat poo place. This is in front of the house so they get nice and warm and a bit sheltered. The only disadvantage is its a bit dry being in the rain shadow- that’s why my neighbour’s cats favour it too... So I have been trying to put them off by big rocks (no not thrown, but strategically placed) and a chicken wire barrier type effort. However it seems that Sparky has a genuine interest in the sunflowers and perhaps considers cat manure a helpful contribution to the cause…. I did explain that chicken poo is better regarded by sunflower growers the world over but thanks for the thought…

So 7 sunflowers planted in the prime spot, and down to 6 already….. not sure of the cause of death to sunflower 5, perhaps it just broke its stem or it could have been a slug although it didn’t get eaten up even though it was nice and leafy… once…. Just as well Sparky and I have back up sunflowers who will be delighted to gain promotion to a top spot.

But Miss Lisa!! You were asking about ants! I have ants!

I kind of thought these were friendly creatures, maybe eating the greenfly and such like, or am I deluded?! Are ants bad? As an experiment I moved the ant from the sunflower it called home onto one which has wee beasties on- aphids? And Sparky and I waited to see if the ant would tear into the nasty wee bug thingys and we could all cheer…

...but no. Instead it just wandered all over the sunflower, going everywhere but doing nothing, so much so that I feared it was lost and was having an ant panic.

So, if the ant doesn’t do anything constructive by tomorrow, I’m afraid it and all the wee aphid thingys are going to get a squirt of soapy water. By the way, I now favour beer traps as a means to dispatch slugs. I would suggest tho that you don’t leave the beer traps too long as the beer disappears super quick. (I didn’t foresee this, doh!) Not so bad, except then you are left with slug sludge or even dried on sluggness in the bottom of your trap which is just too horrific for words…..I’ll take a photo next time….
‘till then happy growing!

Chimney pots and washing poles

Hello Everyone! I hope that all your sunflowers are growing strong and tall :)

I have 3 of my sunflowers planted in a triad formation in old chimney pots around the washing pole (I am short of good sheltered sunny spots). I also have some planted beside the summer house although I think it is too shady for them to thrive there... we'll see!




When I planted my seeds I did get rather carried away and I planted ALL of them not really expecting them all to grow, but grow they have! Now I have more sunflowers than I know what to do with. But not to worry I am spreading the love and giving them to friends and encouraging them to join our blog :)

It's really great to see how everyone's sunflowers are getting along and to get some top tips on slug prevention! Happy growing and keep posting!

Lisa x

The competition is on

Team Invergarry checking in, we can report mixed success in the sunflower stakes so far.

The first batch of Green Hearts and Valentines (received from Team South Laggan) are doing OK, not great just OK. They've been outside for about 3 weeks now, we've lost a few to the chickens and slugs but the survivors are just about holding themselves upright now!

The Russian Giants that have been kept indoors so far have been slightly more successful and we've decided to introduce a little domestic competition to spice things up. So far Jen's pink pot (pink for girls, blue for boys!) is winning but that's because she didn't look after mine while I had to go away!


We also had a few Russian Giants that we started outside but Jen's have fallen at the first hurdle so that probably puts us neck and neck overall - the tension is definitely mounting at Invergarry Lodge!

--Team Invergarry

A delivery of sunflowers

Lisa very kindly delivered 2 sunflowers on Tuesday evening. One for myself and one for my partner Paul. Since he was not home to take his pick, naturally I bagged the best one!

My sunflower is standing 50cm-ish tall from the base of stalk to the tip. Its the one on the right in the photo.

I am quite excited about this adventure of growing some giants. I have kept them safe on top of the picnic bench incase the neighbours dogs vandalise in some way, probably by pee-ing on them!!

I shall keep you all posted on how I get on.

Tuesday, 2nd June.

Hi there fellow Sunny people. Thought I would try out this technology and try to give a wee progress report on my attempts at nurturing the Russian Giants...

Knowing the delights and strengths of Caithness breezes and the lack of shelter here, especially in the upright direction, I was very conservative in my sowing and planted only 4 Russian Giants way back in April. I also thought that to keep them company I would try 4 Dwarf Sunflowers.

I let them all do their thing in the coldframe and eventually on the same day as the Swallows arrived back the first 2 Giants showed their first leaves. Over the next fortnight the other 2 appeared and also one Dwarf.

They all seemed to be growing quite healthily and happily until an unidentified enemy attacked! One mini-Giant had been uprooted and hacked into bits, with the soil all disrupted. The "bearded one" suggested it may be a rogue mouse to blame. I promptly moved them all to a different coldframe so the unseen enemy didn't have a sitting target and the srongest Giant was potted-up. (I also noted that the Dwarfs all had evidence of soil disruption too, perhaps not germinated because they've been knicked?)

So, now I'm in the positon of having 3 Giants and the last-standing Dwarf all potted up. The sun has shone 4 days in a row (and the sun is showing signs of burning through the haar to make it 5), and we're all happy sunny things here.