The first year that we moved to our little house in Courtenay we decided that we wanted to do something different with our back lane. Both Jocie and I love sunflowers so we thought that it would be really cool to plant some on the other side of our back fence beside the road. Since our backyard is south facing the sunflowers did very well there and self-seeded the following year.

We now have American Goldfinch regularly along our sunflower lane feeding on the seeds in late summer and fall. Bees and other insects feed on their nectar and pollen. Our neighbours must have been impressed with the display since two of them have planted their road allowance with sunflowers as well. Hopefully we’ll be able to convert more downtown guerrilla gardeners to our cause!