{"id":78883,"date":"2015-01-20T13:33:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T11:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/78883\/reaching-for-the-sky\/"},"modified":"2015-01-20T12:59:49","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T10:59:49","slug":"reaching-for-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/news-headlines\/2015\/01\/20\/reaching-for-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching for the sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hanalie Jacobs, an Elsburg resident, informed the GCN about the rapidly growing Helianthus annus, the common sunflower, in her back yard.<\/p>\n

“I have never seen such a tall sunflower in my life, it is quite fascinating to witness,” said Jacobs.<\/p>

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This species of sunflower is also used as, among other things, bird food, which inspires Jacobs’s assumption of how the sunflower grew in her yard.<\/p>\n

“I have a parrot, so I used to sprinkle the left overs in the yard, I think that is how it started to grow, we didn’t intently plant it,” explained Jacobs.<\/p>

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Jacobs also said they only noticed that the sunflower was growing in October, last year.<\/p>\n

“My husband and I noticed that a sunflower was growing only around mid-October, but even in November it was not very big,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The massive and rapid growth took place in December; we went on holiday and when we returned we were welcomed by this sky high sunflower.”<\/p>\n

“It has reached the height of the roof, but it seems as though it will soon pass it, I have even asked my husband to tie it as it is falling to one side.”<\/p>\n

Jacobs also thinks that the heavy rains in December might have contributed to the speedy growth of the sunflower.<\/p>\n