sunflowers are THE color of august at red gate farm

Sunflowers.  I never seem to be able to get enough of them.  Both growing and in pictures.  This year I expanded my sunflower planting to the little garden area around the pumphouse.  Since I already grow them in the trough, I thought I'd add a few around the trough and pumphouse as well this year.

And speaking of sunflowers in the trough... well sunflowers in my trough seems to be a popular picture with everyone.

In fact my most pinned photo on Pinterest is from an old post... a picture so old that the little pumphouse building isn't even there yet!  Yep, that's the same tub o' flowers in the exact same spot, circa 2007 (I can tell by the tractor in the background)!  Now that I'm used to seeing the little red pumphouse, the trough looks a little lonely, as does the cement chicken in front!



 The trough was here when we moved in... behind it is a rusty lamp post (long gone) and the well casing for our well.  I believe it was placed there so that nobody would run into the well casing since the driveway is just in front of this area.  It wasn't very pretty sitting there all worn out and decrepit so the first year at Red Gate Farm I filled it with sunflowers... now it's a Red Gate Farm tradition... although now I can only plant shorter varieties since the Mr. doesn't want the window and the light blocked in the pumphouse... not sure what anyone would be doing in there that needs light from the windows especially since there is a light fixture, but I do try to plant shorter varieties in the trough because I like to see the three vintage windows behind the sunflowers.

This year the sunflowers are looking pretty fantastic.  I did realize that I somehow neglected to plant any of the taller varieties... a problem I'll have to remedy NEXT year.

And around Red Gate Farm this year?  Well this one is one of my favorite sunflowers, the Teddy Bear sunflower.  It is rather short and stocky but I love the bushy little yellow face on this variety...  so different from a traditional sunflower.

These multi-branched ones are grown in my garden so that I can pick some to have inside.

Oops... looks like a zinnia is vying for some attention too!

I like this view... sunflowers, a cornfield, some evergreens... all against the blue skies of August.  Nothing says summer more than this view.

I'll have to look up what variety this one is... but it has an interesting inner circle of yellow dots.

And my current definition of country life?  It would have to be sunflowers and a couple of vintage trucks in the background.

Hoping August is treating your gardens well,

Linking up to

Fishtail Cottage

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