Monster Plant

When we first moved into this house I immediately started planning how I could fill up the many blank flowerbeds surrounding the yard.  One of the things I planted was a Dakota Sunshine sunflower.  I was disappointed, it barely grew at all.  When the leaves started to turn brown and crunchy from the buffeting winds we get, I put an overturned pot and a bag of rocks near it to provide something of a shield.  It sent up a couple weak leaves as the summer went on, but they seemed so small and half-hearted, barely an inch or two high.  I was sure I'd need to replace it with something else the following year.

Lo and behold, this summer it came up again and started growing.  Robustly.  By the end of July it looked like this:

You can see the pot still there. 
Now it has started blooming.

It makes a good backdrop for a family portrait on a really hot Sunday..

Or if you leave the bench there, it's a good place to catch two really goofy kids elbowing each other later on.

It also lives up to the claim that it is attractive to butterflies.