Sunflowers, Sunflowers & yet more Sunflowers!

Sunflowers, Sunflowers & yet more Sunflowers!

This journal is about, you guessed it – Sunflowers, Sunflowers & yet more Sunflowers! LOL!

During the last week of May I sowed 100s of Sunflower seeds! Some were saved from last year & some were bought by Gerry this year.

There were two types, basically, of seeds, some were tall & others were short. I saved a lot of seed from the tall ones we grew last year but didn’t know their name – in my photos of these I just call these “Tall”. I also saved some of a short kind, again with no name. These in my photos I just call “Mini”.

Then there were a couple of packets that Gerry bought & gave to me to sow. One packet was of a variety called “Titan” whereas the other was a dwarf variety called “Little Dorrit”:

I sowed the two short varieties at the ends of a few beds where I had space that I hadn’t filled with the rest of the plants in those beds. As I only had a few seeds of “Little Dorrit” I sowed them close to our main path down the allotment. These I spaced out so I wouldn’t have to thin them out later once germinated. Even so it now looks as if I should have spaced them further apart than I did:

“Little Dorrit”, has enormous leaves & enormous flower heads! It’s a shame they aren’t held higher, above the foliage, as this hides them somewhat, as can be seen in the photo:

The seeds saved from last year’s short variety I sowed closer together & thinned out later as I had lots of these seeds. I was also able to sow more rows & in more places:

But their growth is very much determined by the available water supply! Where they received very little water they remained very dwarf – just like last year. But where they received more water they have grown at least twice the height of the ones that received very little water! Nowhere is that more obvious than those I planted at the end of the runner bean bed, these show a marked difference between those that ended up among the beans & those that are bordering the pathway!

I overestimated the number of Runner bean plants that we would have & put up too many canes. The last few pairs of canes remained empty but I couldn’t take them down again without prejudicing the entire framework so I sowed a few rows of dwarf Sunflower seeds to cover them up a little. As these rows got much more water than the other Sunflowers they grew a lot taller!

You can see the end result in this picture:

The other photos show the progress of “Titan” from sowing to flowering. “Titan” hasn’t grown nearly as tall as some of the other “Tall” ones from last year. There is no way we could have won a prize for the tallest Sunflower on the plot like we did last year! I think that was Gerry’s idea when he gave me them!

Amongst the “Tall” Sunflowers a few have been flowering for a couple of weeks, at least one finished a couple of weeks ago & its seeds are nearly ripe! The rest are now beginning to flower. Here are some photos of their progress:

The self-sown Sunflowers have been mostly multi-headed & the tallest of all is a multi-headed one like the one that won us 1st prize last year:

There were two but the strong winds of a couple of weeks ago caused one of them to keel over! The remaining one I stripped of its biggest leaves so there would be less weight for the stem (trunk?) to hold up but mostly to reduce air resistance. That one still continues to flower:

We have only had two pale yellows amongst the self-sown & none – as yet – amongst the ones I sowed:

A last photo is of the dozen or so that I transplanted from where they were growing previously – something I wasn’t sure could be achieved successfully – some from pots of Strawberries, others that had germinated in the allotment soil:

They will continue to be a lovely spectacle for weeks to come!