How To Grow Sunflowers « Homemaker Cherry Menlove

How To Grow Sunflowers

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Hello all!

As you may recall last year I tried to grow sunflowers and the slugs ate them before they grew past a couple of inches. This year I’ve been more successful. A combination of keeping a very good eye on them and having a garden that has less slugs in it.

Before I went away for a break they looked like this. Getting bigger but not quite flowering.

You could kinda tell that they were itching to start showing off though!

They looked like this JUST before I went away and I thought I may miss them.

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But oh no!

Just check these big boys out!!!!

They are definitely using up a lot of energy right now and won’t last too much longer but I am so glad I got to see them looking so shiny!

The bees LOVE THESE flowers and you know how I feel about the bees.

Now that I have had some success with sunflowers I will certainly grow them again next year. I’m thinking about having a long wall of them within the paddock. I’ll keep an eye on them at the start and make sure that the slugs and snails are not allowed to have any kind of midnight banquet on them.

One note of caution I will add pertains to tying them to bamboo canes in order to give support. I lost two of my sunflowers due to tying them too tightly to the cane and not allowing the stalk room to grow. As the stalk expanded the tie cut in to the stalk and basically cut them both in half. Not funny!

I’ve still got one waiting to flower and I think that’s the tallest one in my current collection. Already it’s taller than the arch I made with my Dad.

But the thing I love most about growing sunflowers from seed?