Topic: SCORE!! Black Gold!

[Wrennie]

The garden committee lady's were here today cleaning out the frost bitten annual plants from the towns perrenial bed. SO, I asked the one lady 'are you going to compost that or just toss it?'  It was in a pile behind my store on the ground. I think she may have thought I meant 'You arent leaving that pile of cr@p there are you?' 
She says 'I'll be back later with my truck to get it.' {I didn't ask her that, I asked is it going to be composted, sheesh.} So I said 'ok, cause if you were just going to throw it out I'd say I'll take it home and compost it.....' {now she gets it} 
She gave it to me!  Said if you want it go ahead. She was just going to toss it on a bank, so yeah it would compost there, but it wasn't going into a compost pile. The bed of my truck is FULL! BF is going to think I've lost my mind when I pull in with a truck full of dead garden plants.

I'll be grabbing some tithonia seeds out of it thats for sure!

[Tina]

Black gold and buried treasure. Way to go, Wrennie! Darn 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 101 10

[Tonya]

Awesome score, Wrennie!! Glad she finally got it and allowed you to take it! Now I am off to google tithonia.... **zipppppp**

[Triss]

Way to go Wrennie... nothing like free and the seeds are just an extra bonus, hope you find lots.

[patches]

That's really great, Wrennie!  She was probably glad that she didn't have to fool around with it.  Geesh, I always hate to think of all the good compost material that goes to waste every year.    I've learned you have to keep your eyes open for opportunities like this.   

[Patty S]

Good catch, Wrennie!

I just Googled "tithonia"... could it be that's what Penny's flower is, in the Mystery Plant forum? I don't think anyone has solved that one yet.

[duh]

Fantastic deal.  I love freebies even if they require alittle work.  It's funny since I started composting it's like I can't get enough lol. 

[Wrennie]

Tithonia is an annual and very orange. Pennys flower is a perrenial and yellow. Tithonia is also called mexican sunflower.
Monarch on tithonia

I got a few seeds. it seems they hadnt finished maturing before the frost got them. There are also some marigolds I can seed, I think there was some nepeta in there but The seeds may have been 'lost' as they were trimmed out and tossed first on the ground, in my truck, and into a pile behind the garage.I never tried to seed nicotianna.

[Wrennie]

Fantastic deal.  I love freebies even if they require alittle work.  It's funny since I started composting it's like I can't get enough lol. 

Every leaf that finds its way into my lawn I look at like Ooooh compost! BF wants to wait for them to blow away, I'm out there trying to keep them all!

[Penny]

Very cool Wren, and who knows what you'll have come up in the Spring time too!!

[Patty S]

Tithonia is an annual and very orange. Pennys flower is a perrenial and yellow. Tithonia is also called mexican sunflower.

Besides the orange, called Mexican Sunflower (rotundiflora), it also comes in yellow, known as Japanese sunflower (Tithonia diversifolia).

[Wrennie]

I'm envisioning all sorts of flowers popping up around my veggie garden Penny.
Hmm, never heard of the Japanese one Patty. Time for me to google............zip.............





.....zip...........
Well would ya look at that a yellow tithonia! The leaves are very different than Pennys flower, but just like my orange tithonia.

IF anyone grows these give them LOTS of room. The ones out here in my cool zone 5 got to be about 7 feet tall about 5 feet across, the stem/trunk was about 4 inches wide. and thats just from 1 little seed!

[patches]

Geesh, that's one tall flower, but I like the orange one much better than the yellow one!  Of course, I'm not real fond of yellow flowers in the summer, but I love them in the spring, especially with my pink tullips.