At 9 feet, this perennial sawtooth sunflower is standing tall in the Cherry Creek Habitat
My, my, my… how one of our perennial sunflowers has grown!
We have a sawtooth sunflower (Helianthus grosseserratus) in the Cherry Creek Habitat. When grown in tight colonies the sunflowers reach 3-5 feet tall. However, when you plant one by itself (described as a ‘lone wolf’) it can reach up to 12 ft tall. This afternoon, we went out and measured the sawtooth sunflower in the Cherry Creek habitat and it is 9 ft tall. It is glorious! Unfortunately, it is too tall for the space (and could be aggressive), so we’ll have to move it later. There are plenty of pollinators on the sunflower now and it certainly is a standout in the habitat.
Other habitat news:
- Excited! Jim in our office is busy adding a camera out back so we can view the habitat on the web and share video. We should even have “night vision”.
- We’ve also been doing some nitty gritty work with weeding and adding more rock to keep working on the erosion issues with the space.
- The activity at the bee nesting structure has really slowed down, although I did see one leaf cutter bee busy at work. Bumble bees have certainly not slowed down their activity – they are still as busy as “bees”.
- Today, we saw a lot of monarchs moving south on their migration while working in the habitat.
- As we move into fall, it will be time to harvest seed and plant more plants.
- Speaking of sunflowers, the Lemon Queen sunflowers may not look as pretty now that the flowers are gone, but they are providing food for birds. This afternoon, a female cardinal and three of her young were busy feeding on the seeds.
The Buzz at Cherry Creek 