Westside : KANSAS BY THE BEACH?

Tennyson Bardwell knew he had something unusual when the sunflower in his Venice yard reached 10 feet, but now that it has hit 14 feet, 11 inches, he and his wife have been inundated by passersby who are curious about how they grew such a monster.

“The truth,” he says, “is that it came up by accident.”

The sunflower is among a cluster of the plants that sprang up on their own about five months ago next to a wall in the Bardwell’s side yard, apparently the offspring of some relatively puny 5-foot-tall plants that grew there the year before.

Besides the near-15-footer, another of Bardwell’s sunflowers is 14 1/2 feet tall, and two more top out at more than 12 feet.

“We’ve got perfect strangers coming up to our door wanting to know what’s our secret,” said Bardwell, 35, a waiter. “And, of course, we don’t have any secrets. . . .”