Sunflower

The sunflower is an extremely beautiful and indeed rather dominating flower to have in your garden. One of the reasons for this is, of course, the height of the plant and the massive flower heads.

Facts about Sunflowers

The heads of these flowers can be as much as thirty centimeters across, and are exceedingly complex. It is not just a single flower, but actually thousands of little florets, each a perfect flower in its own right, perfect in every part, and each of which will ultimately form into a seed.

In its complexity and size is reminiscent, perhaps, of the ancient ages of the world, when plant life dominated a great deal more over the animal.

Only the outer most ring of florets has the distinctive petals – these are yellow and usually have a slightly greenish tinge when the flower is young.

As the flower matures, the greenish coloration disappears and the yellow of the flower itself tends to take on a deeper orange shade.

There is a great deal of symbolism associated with the flower, for various reasons. It stands for spring, with its associations of life, birth, peace and progress.

The sunflower's place in your garden

Remember that this plant will thrive in strong sunlight, in conditions in which most other plants would simply wither away and die. Added to this is the fact that, unknown to most people there are actually a great many varieties of sunflowers.

Yes, the big yellow flower that everyone knows of is certainly not the only variety of this plant – there are all sorts of varieties available, in a wide range of colors, and in sizes that range from the massive to small dwarf varieties.

This means that this plant can be used to create all sorts of looks in a garden – you can use different varieties together to bring three dimensional beauty to your garden design, or you can mix these flowers in among other plants that will accentuate them.

These flowers are also excellent for decorating your house – if you cut them and put them into a vase, they will not only attract the attention and brighten the day of everyone in the house, but will also last a long time. A cut sunflower in water can last up to ten days.

Taking care of the plants

The shells of the seeds contain some components which are poisonous to grass. So you have two options: to harvest the heads of this plant before the seeds fall out, or to let the grass nearby be killed.

It is rather easy to take care of these flowers. Most species of this need only light fertiliser, but well drained soil. They set their seed very rapidly and sprout rather fast, that is why you should sow the seeds in exact place where they are supposed to grow.

Warnings

The seeds can attract all kinds of unwanted visitors in your garden, like insects, squirrels and rabbits, who may damage some of the other plants.

I recommend that you sow three times more seeds than is actually needed to ensure they don't all get eaten before they grow. As for the birds, it is advisable to remove the seeds from a grown sunflower and you can then use them for your bird feeder in the winter.

Of course, you can allow the birds to eat the seeds directly from its heads, but it would be more beneficial to the birds if you save the seeds to feed to them during the winter months.

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