I planted sunflower seeds and out of 25 or so plants I only had maybe 10 bloom with beautiful heads. The others just grew stunted and produced a mass of black seeds with no petals around the seed mass. This occurred interspersed with the "normal" looking sunflowers. Any idea what happened? The seeds were fresh, the soil was ammended and every other plant is growing well in my garden except these easy to grow sunflowers. I've never seen anything like it. The stalks are stunted to about 2' tall-the normal looking plants are about 5-6' tall- with just this globular mass of seeds-it's not even the flat looking seed center that accompanies the usual sunflower.

Where was this holly planted?
What kind of soil?
Wha is the sun exposure?

Me again...thanks to everyone for their comments about fragrant roses. I still need to plant more...but the ones I planted tend to have the tips of the petals become dry and curled..after the flower opens. I wonder if this is due to the extreme heat we have sometimes in Denver. Any thoughts? Missing something in the soil? Not enough water?

It could be the result of overwatering. The only way to know for sure is to dig into the soil and find out how much moisture is there. If this was a potted tree it could be the root ball was pot bound and as a result the roots have not moved out into the soil and are unable to pick up moisture and nutrients that are there.

we have a very large pine tree. just inside the base we planted a ring of hostas all around. this is the second year for them and they look real good underneath.

Here is some information from "Our Garden Pests" that may help. http://www.ourgardenpests.com/StripedCuc...eetle.html

I hope those that read the most recent tip about puting dowels in the ground to hang your garden shoes on realize this is a bad idea. Anyone else see the program on the Discovery Channel (National Geographic) about black widow spiders? A woman ended up in the hospital after getting bit from one that was hanging out in her gardening shoes. I sure don't leave mine outside anymore after I saw that!

Pearlite will work just fine - it's a good substitute.

Probably Clematis Wilt. An article in Garden Gate, http://www.gardengatemag.augusthome.com/...ematis.php talks about that.

[color:purple] [/color] I have an "unknown pink flower" growing next to my little pond. Can someone point me to a great searchable website or somewhere that I can post this picture so that maybe someone in this forum knows what it is? I'd really like to find out more about this pretty pink flower....it's about 12" tall and really a pretty pink in color.