maize

the maize that we stood back upright after monday's storms is doing just fine...it bent instead of breaking in the wind and being a member of the zea family it is tolerant of laying down anyway...we probably could have left it laying over but for aesthetics and just to be safe we stood it up...the zea diploperennis in the second photo illustrates what i mean ( to a degree )...the central stalks of the plants grow straight up like maize ( its domesticated descendant )...but the tillers that come off the base splay outward from the roots and lay along the ground as they grow longer...they actually grow support roots along the bottom of the stem that look something like the maize support roots in the third photo...annual tesointe can be eight or ten feet tall and it seems to want to lay across the ground rather than support its weight...i staked the ten footers in my back yard upright last season and they still strained to lay down..so...no harm,no foul...all the maize that has been hill upright in the garden looks good today...there will be ears ( and squirrels ) soon enough.