Back in May I planted sunflower seeds.  The package said it was a “Sunflower Variety”.  As usual, the birds and chippies devoured most of the seeds, but 4 sprouts eventually emerged from the ground.  Of the 4, only one was strong enough to survive the hot and dry summer.  I was a little concerned because as I’ve been driving around, I’ve seen really large sunflowers here and there in my travels.  Mine seemed to be growing at a much slower rate.  I attributed that to the poor soil in my garden.  Lo and behold, the flower has finally arrived!  Much to my dismay, it’s only about 1″ in diameter!  Not quite the 1 FOOT that I was hoping for!  Nonetheless, it’s still a sunflower and it’s still very pretty!  At least I was able to photograph it without using a step ladder as it’s only about 3 feet tall!  How many can say that they’ve actually photographed a sunflower from above like I did with my little gem!?  🙂  Another image is below.  These were photographed with the Lensbaby 3G.