what is this please

[crustyruss53]

Planted my runner beans and this creature appeared with them.
Four foot tall,thick stem with large green leaves and large yellow flowers starting to grow on it.
Any ideas please [url][/url]

[Mo]

A sunflower ?

[lancashire lass]

I would definitely go along with the sunflower suggestion Such a pretty flower too. Lucky it was only a 4 footer ... could have been 10-16 feet LOL

[crustyruss53]

Don't think so Mo,unless it's a dwarf one
It's got til weekend at the moment then it's getting dug up

[lancashire lass]

Don't think so Mo,unless it's a dwarf one

sunflowers come in all sizes - dwarf ones barely 12 inches up to as mentioned 16 feet

[crustyruss53]

I would definitely go along with the sunflower suggestion Such a pretty flower too. Lucky it was only a 4 footer ... could have been 10-16 feet LOL

Checked out the sunflower idea,seemed to fit in with the Autumn Beauty Sunflower,however Sunflowers seem to have dark centres on the flowers and mine are green.

[lancashire lass]

There are loads of different sunflowers that have petals which come in a range of colours, from varied yellows, white, cream, orange, red, dark red / maroon to almost brown as I found out last year when compiling a list of available seeds from various suppliers. Like-wise, some heads have yellow centres while others have a progressively darker almost black centres. I think it would be impossible to identify unless you knew the seed's origin.

A green centre might just be indicative of immature flowers (a sunflower is a composite flower, meaning that although it has a single flower head with a ring of petals, the centre consists of multiple tiny "flowers" that produces pollen and nectar, and each little flower is pollinated to form a single seed) The little flowers on the head don't mature all at once - I can't remember which way it moves whether from the centre out, or from the outer rim first and then into the centre. Bees love the sunflowers and will gorge on the pollen and nectar

[fabindia]

Looks like a sunflower to me too.

I have planted a whole row of them this year. But here in the cold North East, they are nowhere near flowering. When they do though it will give the bees a treat

[Mo]

I can't remember if we planted them one year, but we certainly had sunflowers of all shapes and sizes popping up for several years.

The named varieties might be hybrids that don't 'breed true' so the next generation will be very variable.

The birds (including hens) like pecking at the seeds in the head.