No but I wondered if it would work. I see beautiful ones all over the place growing wild. I bought one and planted it and it died, lol. Go figure.

"Been there, done that". It's exciting at first but by the second year you found out why people don't grow them in their yards. Depending on the size of the plants you yanked they may make it or not. Smaller plants will have more chance to survive. If they make it, you'll probably provide them with more water and nutrients than they would have in the wild, so they would probably grow a lot taller for you. Nice display, but by the end of the fall you'll end up with piles of waste (they are annuals). They re-seed freely, so you'll probably have more seedlings than you ever wanted. I grow natives but wild sunflowers are too much od a hassle for me, thank you very much.

Omar

I like the wild n wooly look. I have a source for wild seeds and I will wild collect. They are wild tho. They breed with abandon! PJ

The birds did it for me. I let a few grow and yank out lots. The ones that I do let go have a tendency to get HUGE! so I prune them on a regular basis. Fun to grow though because the bees & birds go crazy for them.
I have swamp sunflowers.
Tally HO!

Well, I'll keep you all posted. This morning some look pretty good, others look pretty wilted. We'll see. I only planted about six of varying sizes.

If they reseed, that will be good for that area. It's a HUGE BLANK since they took the large tree out a couple of weeks ago. Doesn't get much attention, and I don't know when it will. Just needs a lot of filler!

At least the price was right. ;-)

Nah. The HOA police would be breaking in my door, if I did.

They would call them "weeds".

Native Americans used them around the edges of the fields, to protect the crops from birds.

Yes, I've done this. They should be okay if you keep them watered (which initially may have to be once or twice a day). Once they settle in, they should do nicely.

Carla in Rowlett

Pet department - great idea! I did put out some seeds, but I'm sure I did it too late. Just a whim. Then after the tree came down I was just desperate for fill but told not to plant anything large there for 6 months so the roots could decay/disappear.

The guys that took down the tree ground out the stump so the hole is filled with shredded bark/sawdust. But I am still seeing shoots coming up off roots that were further away. I don't know how it could still be alive... it's a capital pear, related to bradford - those things die when you try to keep them alive!

Just a word of caution. Be careful going into peoples pastures, fields or whatever. Your liable to get more than you bargained for.

Oh, no... I just pulled some up at the edge of a parking lot. Believe me, I'm not willing to go to that much trouble, lol.

Good deal :)

I picked some last year on my way to a park and planted them when I got home. They didn't make it but this year they showed up. I also found some iron weed in some woods about 2 yrs ago and it comes back every year. Very pretty

Ok, I'm a little bit excited. I went out today and trimmed back all the leaves that had wilted and crisped... and I saw new little leaves forming at the stems where the dead ones were!

Now I'm eyeballing Mexican Hat and Indian Blanket in ditches. Even some of the tall grasses look good...

I know it sounds like a recipe for a long term mess, but I have a large area that is truly barren!

I picked some horse herb last year on the side of the road, it did fine but did not reseed.
There are some beautiful wild flowers by me in fields and I'm just dying to get my hands on them LOL but die I might if I step onto the property. So I don't think it's worth being shot at for a wild flower.
But I have gathered seeds from roadsides if it's safe to do so, I don't take chances if there's traffic and nowhere to pull over out of the way.

Put sugar into the stump & wet it down, & it'll speed up the decomposition.

Any sugary substance will do-
flat soda & beer, leftover wine, old jams & jellies, etc.

Wherever you see a sprout, cut it off, expose the root where it emerged, peel off some of the bark or skin to expose the tissue, & pour sugar on that, too.

I once got very irate when I saw a couple digging up the *only* mullein at the side of the road;
it was the only one in sight!

sylvia,

I don't think it works like that. It needs protein (nitrogen, green stuff) to break woody material down fast. It's exactly same way as composting... simply throwing alfalfa pellets, soybean meal will do that trick. my mom had a huge pile of leaves but it was too cold so I threw in soybean meal and it heated up right away. All you need is "green" stuff in woody material...

hmmmm...
my neighbor told me she routinely removed stumps by "buying a 5-lb bag of sugar" & dumping it on the stump.

but nitrogen sounds like something that would work...

I need some stumps to experiment on!

Sugar=carbs=protein?? right?

Sugar is a whole lot cheaper than alfalfa LOL

Just wanted to say that they are blooming and lovely. Don't know how much they will reseed, there's a bit of mulch there, but they were free and look great in the BIG HOLE left by the tree. If I have a lot of dead stuff to haul away later, I don't care.

That dang tree is sending up shoots everywhere! Clearly the "tree guys" didn't get enough of the long roots. They are exposed on the surface, though. I am going to hack them open with an axe and pour a dab of stump killer on them. (not green, sorry, hubby brought it home and I am frustrated). I have a feeling it won't phase them.