Plant a little happiness
Colorful sunflower blooms create bright spots in any landscape
Vicky Julian was going about her business — feeding the chickens and ducks and tending the raised beds — on -acre farm in Rosharon she saw it. Tucked into u spot in the middle of flower bed rose a 5-feet-tall sunflow ith bright-yellow o
idn’t plant it, and she’s not sure how it got there.
“We do feed black oil sunflowers in the bird feeders but not in the area where this flower appeared,” she says. “The seed had to be dropped at the right time in the right space. It’s just nature doing her plan, I guess.”
Julian was happy to see it. It’s hard not to like a sunflower.
Sunflowers (Helianthus anus) are native to North America. Some evidence suggests that Native Americans were growing them as early as 3000 B.C. and using them for food and dyes. The more modern varieties were mostly developed by Russians after the seeds were passed along to them from Europeans who visited “the New World.”
Across the United States, including in Texas, sunflowers are grown commercially for oil and seeds for human consumption, as well as for birdseed and for cut flowers. Our warm, sunny climate is perfect for this striking, happiness-inducing plant in all its varieties, which makes it an easy choice for home gardeners, especially those who garden with kids.
Sunflowers need full sun; six to eight hours is the mini-
mum. They are also heavy feeders, so soil needs to be worked with compost or organic fertilizer and maintained for health. If you want tall plants with big heads, plant single seeds and space them about a foot apart. Plant them closer together or in clumps of five to six seeds, and the plants will be shorter with more, but smaller seed heads.
Fortunately, gardeners have lots to choose from in terms of color and height. The plant’s standard structure is a head made up of tiny florets surrounded by fluttery petals on a tall stem. The florets harden into seeds as the flower matures.
Some varieties, such as the Mammoth Russian, grow to 10 feet tall or more with seed heads the size of dinner plates. Other varieties grow in the 4- to 6-foot range and produce saucer-size flowers. Dwarf varieties are like medium shrubs and offer sprays of smaller flowers on side stems.
The classic sunflower is golden yellow, but many varieties burst out in hues of bright yellow, orange, darker gold and burgundy, or combinations of these.
Gardeners who choose a taller variety should be prepared to stake the plant as it grows. Also, sunflowers are heliotropic, which means they orient themselves toward the sun. The heads of young plants will turn toward the sun as its position in the sky changes throughout the day. Once the heads and flowers mature, they often stay more stationary and tend to face east. So, choose your planting location accordingly.
Sunflowers, in many ways, are the complete package. They offer big blooms that last a long time on their stems or in vases, and when they fade, you get to eat the seeds. And they’re rivaled only by the bean in terms of easiness to grow, which is why the quickest way to lure children into the garden is to have them grow sunflowers with you. From that tiny little black or striped seed, a gargantuan, golden flower emerges and reminds us, yet again, that the garden is a place of miracles.
Like Julian says, it’s just nature doing her thing.
bjillc@aol.com
Varieties to consider
TALL PLANTS: American Giant Hybrid: tallest sunflower variety, grows to 16 feet tall, with 10-inch golden-yellow sunflowers Mammoth Russian: bright-yellow, 12-inch flowers and seed heads on heavy, 10-foot-tall stalks Kong: 12- to 14-foot-tall stalks with yellow flower heads on short side stems Giganteus: sturdy 12- to 14-foot-tall stalks with enormous flowers that are 1 foot or more across Autumn Beauty: mix of gold, yellow, rusty-red, burgundy and bicolors on 6- to 7-foot-tall plants
MEDIUM HEIGHT Moulin Rouge: 6- to 8-inch dark-burgundy flowers with nearly black centers, grows to 6 feet tall Peach Passion: produces masses of 3- to 4-inch soft-apricot colored flowers on bushy, 4-foot-tall plants ProCut Red: burgundy-red with deeper red centers, on plants that grow 4 to 6 feet tall Joker: 6- to 8-inch red and yellow bicolor semidouble to fully double blooms on branched 6- to 7-foot-tall plants
DWARF/BUSH HEIGHT: Orange Hobbit: bushy plants grow 1 to 2 feet tall with golden-orange flowers with deep-brown faces Firecracker: red and gold bicolor blooms on compact, branching 24- to 36-inch-tall plants Little Becka: produces sprays of copper-red flowers with dark centers and yellow halos up to 5 inches across. Grows 2 to 3 feet tall