Leava, I love sunflowers, too. And so do birds and squirrels. :) With all the rain last May, I had one over 12 feet tall by summer. I don't even have to put seeds out anymore; I just move the volunteers.

Janey is a cutie pie!

Michelle

My grandson and I planted sunflowers next to the cannas and the sunflowers are currently almost as tall as the canna. I know the cannas will take off when the heat and sun set in. The ones we planted are a variety of color, can't wait to see how they look.

still need to get the pumkin seed planted, just keep forgetting or its raining!!!

with this slow rain I will be mowing every other day so I better get caught up on all my stragglers this weekend and coming week.

does miss Janey run your house like my babies run mine?

Dawn thank you :) so happy now lol.Dragonfly we feed birds all winter.We used to buy mixed seed but noticed most of it was wasted and they like sunflowers best so we just buy 2 huge bags of it .so i am used to those little sunflowers everywhere which is why this one was startling....stockergal Janie is beyond spoiled rotten but right now the three bottlefed kittens we are raising from a feral mom run the house.they have graduated to lapping kitten milk replacement and eating some kitten chompies but they are little screech owls and climbing everything in sight.....

All our furbabies run the house, and if you don't believe me, just ask them. We love them though and wouldn't have it any other way. Our oldest dog is now 11 years old and getting quite gray-haired and it is hard to watch him age and slow down. We lost his brother quite suddenly a few months ago and it reminded me that we have to love them and enjoy them while they are here because they don't live forever. Our second oldest dog is only two years younger and she is turning quite gray-haired now as well, but our two young dogs are under 2 years in age and they think they rule the world (or at least whatever room they are in). The 2 younger dogs do show proper respect for their elders (the dogs, not the people).

Our cats probably think we are their servants. Don't y'all think so? We feed them, we brush their hair, we buy them cat toys, we clean out their litter boxes....so, I am pretty sure they think that they own the house and we are just servants. And, of course, we serve as their warm-blooded furniture when they need to curl up in a lap and purr and fall asleep. I grow catnip and catmint for our cats and they love to come to the garden and roll around on it and smash it down to the ground.

I'm glad the kittens are doing so well, Leava. We haven't had to bottle feed a kitten in a few years, but we took in a mother cat someone dumped "out in the country" last year and then she gave birth to 4 kittens in our son's house, which was under-construction. Three of the kittens survived and now they all spend their days outdoors and their nights sleeping in the guest room. Heaven help us all when the time comes that we actually need to use the guest room for a human guest. The cats will not be happy about that.

I think a yard and garden with cats and dogs (and chickens and turkeys) is a friendly yard and garden, even when there's days I'm trying to tend to plants and the cats and dogs are insisting on diverting attention away from the plants to the pets.

Ok, Dawn what IS the difference between catnip and cat mint? I was assuming they were the same thing. (Apparently I need another plant...)

i have both catmint and catnip although i always forget which is which.smaller leaves on the catmint i think,more ridged, look and smell more like a mint family member

....

Interesting! I have catnip volunteers. I assume cat mint would be invasive like other mints? I will have to get some. Wonder if my cat would let me grow it inside for her.

amy mine does keep expanding but does not seem to invade quite like mint....

In my garden, catmint is a perennial and catnip is a crazily reseeding annual. The catmint leaves are smaller, and the plant growth itself is more like a spreading perennial than the unruly annual that catnip can be. There are different varieties of catmint, from spreading mostly horizontal forms like Walker's Low to taller more shrubby types like Six Hills Giant. I'll link a company that sells lots of different catmints just so you can see some of them. Some catmints can be grown from seed, and some varieties have pink flowers instead of blueish-purple ones.

Examples of Catmint at High Country Gardens

Both catmint and catnip are Nepeta.