Swamp Sunflowers

Every year my gardening efforts start with cleaning up the flower beds, cutting back the old dead stalks and trimming the bushes.  But in the front garden beds this happens in late November or early December, right before we decorate the front porch and bushes with strings of lights for Christmas.

Not long after I made this sketch the flowers were gone and I was trimming back the five foot stalks.  It will be eight months before these garden giants bloom again.