Do you have many squirrels or other wildlife (deer, opossum, ...) in your area? If so, there's a good chance some of them are behind the crape myrtle trimming. Squirrels eat or experiment with all sorts of things, especially during the intervals between their primary fruit and nut foods. They remove several flowering tips from our crape myrtles every year... as well as an occasional bedding plant, turf runners, and small branches or bark from other trees. Some birds do eat the seeds, though they don't seem to be a favorite with our year-round locals while alternatives are still available. Sorry you're living with the frustration of stuff disappearing from your property. A security camera could help figure it out, just be sure to get one with good low light capability in case the "critters" causing your losses are nocturnal. At least your young resilient CMs should be fine. Here is a link that might be useful: Goldfinch and crape myrtle seed

Deanna, I suspect they will. The finches love echinacea and salvias and I see no reason they won't eat the tithonia. It will probably self-seed for you too. Maybe not; I see you are Zone 5 not 6 like me.

A number of trees have this strategy of a preferred animal seed ingestor making the seeds more viable via the digestive process and dispersing them far from the parent plant. Making seed germination less likey near the parent is a good strategy, as you don't want to create a lot of resource cometition next to a mature seed-bearing tree. Dogwoods are another good example of seeds that need digestion / scarification for sprouting. You rarely find dogwood seedlings under a dogwood tree. Their fruits have a germination inhibitor that must be stripped off, and the seed coats nicked. Each fall I have a flock of thousands of Robins descend on my woods - whch are full of dogwoods - and strip the trees bare of fruit. It reminds me of a scene from "The Birds"! There are always tons of Dogwood seedlings near their roosting spots.

I've had this for a couple of years now....things have sprouted up that I never knew would grow in Florida....it's been interesting to try to identify the 'weeds' that pop up! AND...they pop up everywhere! Who ever knew about blue-eyed grass? and these pretty little 'thistle' like plants.... For the most part, they just get mowed down with the rest of the 'lawn' - which is basically weed, but, hey...it's green, yanno??? (I'm all for banning lawns, but the spousal unit feels he needs to do his part to contribute to the neighborhood!) Anyway, these volunteers either get mowed, as I said, or, every now and then they are moved to a 'safer' place...sunflowers don't transplant well here, but sometimes I try.....and corn will only get so high before the heat zaps it. One of my biggest problems with 'bonus' plants are the ones that get into the truck at places like Lowe's and Home Depot...even the occassional one at Walmart. I really think those exits thru the garden centers should really be banned.