The sunflower seeds of winter-past that we fed birds with throughout the long cold months had their opportunity come spring to germinate in the nearby garden beds where squirrel and bird activity sent them helter-skelter from feeding stations around into the landscape. Even our neighbours have seen sunflowers sprouting up in their gardens. But to us, needless to say, came the delight of hundreds of seedlings that had to be plucked to make room in the garden beds and borders for our usual complement of perennials and annuals.

Sunflower seedlings popped up unexpectedly in the most unusual of places. Some made their way to the back gardens, and gardens bordering either side of the house, so it's hardly surprising that our neighbours also are enjoying those large bright sunny faces mirroring the sun.

I did cull some of those that I had left to mature, since they were growing in fairly awkward places, and though I thought I had stripped the fertile soil of enough of the seedlings to make room for other garden show-offs, I hadn't, sufficiently.

The bright red blooms of the California poppies that always nicely reseed themselves have now receded but other plants are being lost in the crowded atmosphere of sunflower entitlements as their stalks grow larger and pushier and they develop side-stalks and put out even more of their complex buds aspiring to become those huge sunny faces that monopolize the garden.

We're re-thinking the wisdom of putting out such copious amounts of sunflower seeds during the winter in our anxiety to ensure that local birdlife (and squirrels and raccoons and rabbits) have enough food to keep them hale and hearty until spring. Perhaps we'll decide to limit our offerings to conventional birdseed.

Perhaps not.