This sunflower showed up in our garden uninvited, i.e., we didn't plant it. No doubt it was a product of a sunflower seed from the bird feeder that was dropped onto the mulch bed surrounding our intended plants and made itself at home in our garden.
Today I ran across the use of sunflowers in:
Phytoremediation: You Can Grow Plants That Help Eliminate Radiation In The Soil
I'm not sure how much scientific proof there is so far, but the theory is that the sunflower's root structure is so dense and strong that it is able extract heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, and radionuclides Cesium 137 and Strontium 90 out of the soil or water.
I'm not sold on it yet, but I thought it was worth passing on.
4 comments:
Such lovely flowers...I may have to see about planting some in my front yard. But, just like my apple tree, the squirrels will beat me to it and I won't get one seed out of it, lol!
They are lovely, but this one was even better because it was unexpected. We almost plucked it thinking it was a weed. Now we're glad we didn't.
Yes, those squirrels are acrobats of the first order. They steal from our bird feeders all the time. I love to watch them feud with the birds.
Just think... that sunflower picked you!
I can certainly agree that they have dense root systems. We had two teachers that had a tallest sunflower race in town every year, in rows of gigantic flowers. One year I tried to help pull up the stems once the flowers were ready for harvest. I couldn't believe how hard they stuck in the ground! It took two of us and a pitchfork to loosen them enough to pull.
pretty sunflower! :)
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