I Heart Sunflowers

[Tom A To]

I've planted a lot of them this year but for some reason the deer are honing in on them. Every year is different and next year they'll decimate something else. Dang.... Anyway, here are a few heads from last year's crop. You can see why I had a lot of seeds to plant this year.

This year its Joker, Mammoth Russian, Giganteus and Giant Sungold.

Easy to spot the Golden Spiral, yes?

[kath]

Cool photo, Dennis- thanks to the ever-present squirrels, I've never seen the amazing patterns formed by the seeds. I planted a row of Sunrich Orange this year that was a bonus with a seed order and will use them for cut flowers but wish I could grow varieties for seed production.

[Deborah]

Awesome !

[tam91]

I planted a couple giant varieties for the first time this year, I hope they work. I started them inside in small peat pots and planted them out recently, they look good so far. Can't wait.

[Tom A To]

Originally Posted by tam91

I planted a couple giant varieties for the first time this year, I hope they work. I started them inside in small peat pots and planted them out recently, they look good so far. Can't wait.

I did that this year too, along with planting many of them directly. One thing I noticed - after germination, it doesn't take very long for the tap root to find its way to the bottom of the peat pot and it seemed like, when it does, it actually stemmed the growth (no pun intended) compared to those planted directly. When I put the peat pot versions into the ground alongside the directly planted sunflowers they were not as robust, that is, they did not take off as fast, if at all. But, with all the earwig and deer damage this year, its a bit of a challenge to conduct a controlled experiment. You may have different results.

[tam91]

Interesting, I was trying to get a head start. They were still growing taller (in the pots), so I'm hopeful they'll do ok. Guess I'll see.

[goodwin]

Here's something I hadn't seen before with sunflower seedlings. These are my Arlin's Little Sunshine - a dwarf, black-seeded, single blossom. Just a couple are blind, but it's interesting. Something must be different this year, I guess.
Lee

[RayR]

That is weird, never seen anything like that before either.

[Tom A To]

Nor I. Hard to visualize how they might grow from there.

[Alfredo]

Wow... beautiful and impressive sunflower heads.

[nolabelle]

I bought some seed packs from the dollar store, 5 for a dollar. One of them was sunflowers. Of the entire seed pack, only five grew up. Here's the first one to bloom. I'm fighting all kinds of bugs here this summer. So the flowers are pretty chewed up.

[Tom A To]

That's a beauty.

Do you have Goldfinches around there? They'll take those leaves down to nothing in short order. I have flocks of them around here but its OK, I grow the sunflowers for them as well.

This is at the entrance to my tomato garden this season.

[nolabelle]

We don't have goldfinches much, just a lot of sparrows and jays. The damage on those plants is mostly from snails and cutworms.

I will take more pictures when the others open up.