I think I have the same problem. This is my first time planting sunflowers & I have watched them daily. Mine are the 'giant'variety & the stems are green & thick. One huge flower looks as though it was trying to split in half so it looks deformed to me. I have bright yellow petals & seeds were forming & then the heads bent over & there is a blackish smear in the center of the heads. I don't think they ever seeded since I never saw birds but I never had black bugs. I've read thru sunflower diseases but nothing describes this. I must admit, I don't know what heathy, natural sunflower seed looks like either. I have not lost petals so I don't think this is maturation either & the leaves are healthy. The back of the heads are still green. My flowers are in Maryland

We have grown a wide variety of sunflowers in the past. Our favorite has always been "Moulin Rougue" a deep maroon, almost black sunflower. The only problem with it is it drops it's petals easily. This year we tried a new one . . . "Golden Cheer" a large double sunflower (some people call it "shaggy dog") It has been outstanding with plenty of flowers from one plant. There are numerous side branches that produce large flowers just as big as the main stem. We have been getting $2 a stem and they sell out! This is one sunflower we will continue to grow and we highly recommend it. Available from Geo Seeds and probably others, but Geo is one of the best seed companies out there.

Gamebird, I have horrible clay soil and my sunflowers routinely get 10' tall and some make it to 12-15' tall and, believe me, they don't get any special care. They barely get water beyond whatever rain falls whenever. Maybe it is the acidity of your soil, or just a bad year in terms of too much moisture at times in April/May and too much heat early in June? I also get the standard huge seedheads on the types that produce large seedheads (Mammoth Greystripe and Mammoth Russian). I like to cut off the mature seedheads, if I can beat the birds to them, dry them and save them for winter. Then, in the winter, I'll take out a seedhead and lay it on the ground. The birds will visit it and busily pick out and devour the seeds. I think some plants in the midwestern states and northern plains get larger because of their soil and rainfall, and because their summer heat normally is not as hot as ours, or as hot for a prolonged period. Our heat is very hard on plants of all types. And I think it may have something to do with daylength since those areas are long daylength areas and we are in a shorter daylength area. Mammoth Greystripe and Mammoth Russian are open-pollinated and considered stable, so they shouldn't be reverting back to anything unless you have seed that was collected from cross-pollinated plants. I haven't seen the fields of sunflowers in Wisconsin, but have seen lots of them in the high plains area of western Texas and they were big and tall and gorgeous. I assume they are irrigated since that part of Texas is a very low-rainfall area most years. George, The effect of daylength on different plants is fascinating. I have known about daylength for years with regards to onions, but am still learning how it affects other things....like beans. Bob, I think the 60' row of okra might have been more manageable in a normal year? Yours withheld its flowers for so long and then it just went crazy. I would imagine your wife and daughter have processed and put up and cooked all the okra they care to see for a while. The cousin can't cook fried okra? Well, good heavens. She can't consider herself a Texan until she masters that skill. Some corn varieties are just taller than others. A lot of today's commercial corn varieties are bred for close planting and also are bred to stay fairly short for mechanical harvesting. Some of the corn varieties I grow get 5' tall and others get 8' tall, and I do think it is a varietal thing. That's sweet corn. When I grow dent corn, it usually is much taller. I grew broom corn one year, which I guess technically is a sorghum and not true corn, and it got 15-16' tall and stopped traffic. Every company with seed racks here has either Mammoth Russian or Mammoth Greystripe in the spring....Burpee, Ferry-Morris, etc., so seeds of large-headed sunflower vareties should be easy to find in spring. Dawn

threeapples--You are definitely getting hit with alot of decisions all at the same time! The dune is pretty, but colors tend to go out of style. Are you ready to commit to that color tub for the next 5,10,15,20+ years? Let me ask you this...If you were buying a house instead of building one, would you be ok with a turquoise, rose, or yellow tub or would it be on list of things to replace? Would you buy a floor model tub in A-1 100% perfect condition from a plumbing showroom display in turquoise, rose or yellow today for this house? (I actually had that opportunity when I was making my selections--you'd be suprised what you can find in showrooms in small towns!) If your answer to either of these questions is no, then I say don't go with the dune--just stay with white. The white tiles + the white tub should give the bath a clean, simple, yet elegant feel. Or you could always use your tiles for that splash of color in the bath & go with something other than white. Just a thought--have you considered using "large subway tiles" or rectangular tiles set in a brick pattern in the kids' baths--bigger tiles means less grout for you to scrub. Just a thought...