Growing sunflowers

pixie76

My husband is planning to do this and neither of us are particularly greenfingered!! Any tips or advice would be appreciated , thanks.

savemoney

Easy to grown in pots or the soil

Sow in small containers or those plant cells. Pointed part of seed at top. cover with soil about 1/2 cm and place in warm window sill or greenhouse and water lightly. Keep and eye on it everyday and water accordingly

With 7-10 days they shoot up and let grow until around 10-12 cm and then pot on or place in soil keep and eye out for slugs they love them when young and tender

Stake in ground when around a couple of feet with bamboo canes. They get thirsty do sunflowers so I water mine every day usually especially in pots in full sun

annie123

I did a trial a few years ago with snails (I have loads in my garden) and sunflowers.
Grew several types....First eaten were the giant ones, only made it to 3" tall :mad: last to be munched were the teddy bear ones, at least they waited till they had flowers on them...then they ate the stems

Copper tape is used in abundance to keep them away, does work but as its expensive I only have one tub of sunflowers each year now.

fimonkey

My advice is to not sow too many! The first year I tried I sowed the whole packet of seed and ended up with a 100 giant sunflowers!

Also I tend to avoid the bio-degradeable pots that allows the roots through, I find they don't break down enough, don't really allow the roots through and stunt the plants growth.

Finally watch out for squirrels! I lost three of my best sunflower heads in full bloom to the little critters, the flowers were too close to the fence and the squirrels just leaned over and ate the lot!

Enjoy!

kte

Not exactly answering your question but for anyone who loves sunflowers...this Saturday is International Guerilla Gardening Sunflower Day...

http://www.guerrillagardening.org/ggsunflower.html

artha

pixie76 wrote: »

My husband is planning to do this and neither of us are particularly greenfingered!! Any tips or advice would be appreciated , thanks.

I shouldn't worry. Sunflowers are the easiest of plants to grow and are not fussy about how they are planted unless you want the best quality blooms. As I have a lot of bird feeders around the garden I find sunflowers popping up all around the garden. (a large proportion of bird seed is sunflower seed)