Keep your face always toward the sun, and the shadow will fall behind you. -Walt Whitman
My love for sunflowers goes back a couple of decades, when I had my first volunteer pop up near the bird feeders. I loved the big yellow face that followed the sun, and the added benefit of free bird seed!
The sunflowers of today are a staple of many flower gardens, with their variety in size, colors and habits. Let's jump below the tangled garden hose and check out the beauties that will fit in any sunny garden.
Here's a few fun facts about sunflowers:
Sunflower heads grow in a spiral.
A sunflower actually tracks the movement of the sun across the sky. This is called heliotropism.
Sunflowers can grow anywhere from 3 feet to 18 feet tall. The tallest sunflower ever grown was 25' 5.5" tall and grown in the Netherlands in 1986.
Now, I love the big seed heads of the mammoth sunflower everyone is familiar with and the dozens of blooms on the Maximillian sunflowers above, but there are so many different types available these days, anyone can find a sunflower to fit in their garden.
This is called "Cinnamon Sun" and has a chocolate colored center:
Here is the gorgeous "Strawberry Blond":
"Velvet Queen":
"Cappuccino":
"Coconut Ice":
And one I just discovered on Pinterest, the very striking "Cherry Rose":
Not only are sunflowers easy to grow, bees and butterflies love them! I sow the seeds directly into the ground in the spring in my hot and sunny back yard. Not too far from the hose, though, these taller sunflowers can be real water hogs in our dry, hot summers.
Don't you have a sunny corner of your yard begging for sunflowers?
Seed Sources:
Park Seed
Renee's Garden
Burpee Seeds
Swallowtail Gardens