Sunflowers can often grow to surprising sizes - but it can be an even bigger surprise if you didn't even plant one.
Bill Gowland, 63, watched with astonishment as the oversized flora grew and grew out of his flower bed without him ever having planted a seed.
Although a neighbour on the same street grows sunflowers, the house is downhill, and Bill thinks the flower may have come from a mixed seed bird feeder next to where the flower now stands.
"I was a bit surprised when it popped up and more surprised when it kept on growing and it's taken about two months to get to six feet in height and a flower about 15 inches across.
"I did have a bird table there and would buy packs of bird feed - I can only assume there were sunflower seeds in there and a bird knocked it off."
Bill said he has 'another mutant' sunflower in the garden, which he also didn't plant, with one large head and six more sprouting elsewhere on the plant.
