Fun plants for junior gardeners
Looking for a fun garden project to do with your children this summer? Growing beautiful sunflowers or making a sweet pea wigwam are a couple of nifty ideas.
First, let’s talk sunflowers. They are one of the easiest annuals to grow from seed, making them a perfect choice for children.
There are dozens of kinds from which to choose.
Some, like Suntastic, are small and grow to only 12 inches (30 cm), tall, making them ideal for containers. These also bloom in less than 65 days.
But children often like to grow the mighty Jack-and-the-Beanstalk sunflowers. For that you need Russian Mammoth, which can soar to more than four metres.
All sunflowers come from a common ancestor — the original sunflower — native to Mexico and Central America, which was cultivated as far back as 3000 BC.
Original Sunflower is still available and will grow to three metres, or more. Titan is another tall specimen, reaching 3.6 metres, but taking 110 days or so to get there, so you need to start early.
Selective breeding has produced the black oil sunflower, which is grown around the world for sunflower oil production.
But many other cultivars have been developed for their ornamental appeal. Solar Power is one of the prettiest with its bi-coloured petals of mahogany and bright yellow. This grows about 1.7 metres. Autumn Beauty is another fine specimen that can produce as many as 20 blooms per plant with colours ranging from yellow to bronze.
Sunflowers are great for attracting pollinators and other beneficial insects. Mark Macdonald, the seed guru at West Coast Seeds, says they are also useful in improving pollination in crops such as squash and pumpkins.
To get the best bang for your buck, you need to feed your sunflowers. They are heavy feeders and appreciate being grown in rich, fertile soil in full sun. Plant seeds directly into the ground, about five mm to one cm deep. Make sure you space the seed according to final size — large sunflowers should be spaced at least three feet (one metre), apart.
As for sweet peas, these can be grown around a wigwam-like structure of bamboo canes or poles.
The key to success is to gently crack the toughness of the seed. Some gardeners like to do this by first soaking seeds the night before sowing to help speed up germination. Others gently rub seeds with sandpaper to “scarify” or slight scratch the surface and make the seed more amenable to germination. Another important tip is to make sure seeds are sowed in a spot that enjoys full sun. The soil should be rich, enhanced with lots of good rotted compost or pre-packaged manure.