Say hello to “Little Leo”, the first Sunflower of the year!

“Little Leo” grows no higher than two feet (60 cm) high. I grow fifteen or twenty of these flowers in a large pot on the patio. Progressively they come into bloom and fill area above the pot with colour. The stems also produce more than one flower. As you can see from the image son of Little Leo is well on the way curving to the left of the image. The flower has bright yellow petals and the centre core has a more intense yellow colour.

A small hoverfly can be seen visiting the flowers if you look closely at the image. The soft spiky hairs on the stalk are also clearly visible. Summer really has arrived when the sunflowers come out. This image was captured in shade yesterday evening.

I’m now waiting for the large sunflowers to grow and bloom over the coming weeks

Equipment: Sony SLT-A65V, Tamron 16-300mm

Settings: F5.6 1/80 ISO 100