It looks like the dangerous/unstable area to mow is right next to your driveway. I would suggest you remove the grass there and put a groundcover in along that strip about 18-24" wide. There are many kinds of groundcovers, some green (like ivy) and some flowering. The idea is to keep it low and provide a border in front. Ivy is easy to root if you can find someone who can give you clippings. I understand your idea that seeds will be less expensive to start your garden but you will have to be very very patient and it won't look good for a very long time doing it that way. However you should start SOME plants from seeds or learn how to take cuttings (much faster than seeds). GardenWebbers are very generous with seeds (Go to Seed Exchange and look for free offers.) Or buy some seeds and start them. I suggest marigolds because they are easy, colorful and reliable. When I first started gardening I didn't know the difference between a perennial and an annual and made a lot of mistakes trying to grow things in the shade that wanted sun and vice versa. Because you have such a large area to fill in I would suggest buying a couple of gallon size flowers that you like (perennials, so they'll come back next year) and then fill in with flowers like petunias that spread and are colorful. As time goes on and you have money to add more plants, or the perennials you start from seeds (in pots, not right in place) have gotten large enough you can add them in. Denise A gardener who loves starting from seed

I am growing sunflowers for the first time this year. I am using the Russian Mammoth...and the Skyscraper...They are growing inches everyday! I can't wait to look out my kitchen windows and see big beautiful flowers. My husband dislikes them...but he loves me..so big sunflowers it will be!! They are planted along the chain link fence that separates our two homes...and I had extra seedlings so I planted them (5) all together under the water spigot!!

Sheesh!! No fun for either of you guys. We just had rain here in Bowie. Lots of steady soaking rain. All day. I thought I'd never say this but - thank goodness for the Pokemon cartoon marathon that ran all day... Oh, and we had a mysterious explosion somewhere not far away this morning. It sounded like a dumpster being dropped from a height... very weird. Hubby thinks it might have been a propane tank exploding - we're almost directly west of the landfill but have never heard any noise from over there before. Have a great day! Hope the plants come back okay. Lynne

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