AndytheChiliMan
New Member
My main garden plot is a small strip of dirt between the sidewalk on the south side of my house and my neighbors' (also my in-laws, and we get along fine) driveway. One summer, about 4 years ago, I planted "mammoth" sunflowers on the east end of the garden, the end closest to the street. Across the street, with a view from their front porch directly to the deck on the back north corner of my in-laws' house, are my across-the-street neighbors, an older married couple. My FIL calls them "Lurch 'n' Stare". On nights when the weather is nice, IOW most late spring, summer and early fall nights, they sit on their front porch, basically staring at whatever is going on in the neighborhood, including what my in-laws are doing on their deck. Not talking to other people, or even each other. Not reading. Just staring. One day, my wife's stepmom told me, "Andy, you need to do the same thing every year." I asked, "What do you mean?" She pointed to the sunflowers and then to their deck, and said, "Look at whose view these sunflowers block." "Lurch 'n' Stare" can't see past the sunflowers to my in-laws' deck! So, every year lots of volunteer sunflowers come up in my garden. I thin them to one row on the east end of my strip of dirt, and they serve as a very effective screen that offers a modicum of privacy to my in-laws, much to their appreciation. Not only that, but every late-summer/early-fall our sunflowers--both the seeds and the juicy heads--are a BIG hit with the neighborhood squirrels!