Sunflowers are such a cheerful herbal flower and the bees love them!
Bees love them so much that many of my garden sunflower photos have ended up with bees in them as well! There’s rarely been a gardening year that I don’t grow a small or large patch of sunflowers. There are many colors of sunflowers other than yellow like red sunflowers, there are also different types of sunflower heights.
How to Grow Sunflowers
Growing sunflowers is pretty easy. Sunflowers are prefer full sun and are drought tolerant. They will grow in any well-drained soil, although they do appreciate some compost. Some people add born to create larger heads for seed, but I haven’t tried that yet. The main thing to pay attention to it that sunflowers are considered allelopathic. This means they can actually reduce or prevent germination and growth in the surrounding plants because of toxins released in the roots. We often grow use sunflowers as a trellis for pole beans, too.
When to Grow Sunflowers
Certain sunflowers bloom mid to late summer, others not until Sept or Oct. Your frost dates will be important to pay attention to as you want the blooming times to be before then. I like growing a mix sunflower patch of spread out blooming times, height and colors.
Sunflowers come in many shapes and sizes
Some sunflower types like Giant sunflowers reach huge sizes, 14 feet is common.
These are great if you love sunflower seeds because they have the largest sunflower head. You harvest the head at the end of the season and dry it to get the seeds. The birds love them though, so you’ll have to be quick or you can leave some in your garden for them.
Dwarf Sunflower Varieties for Smaller Backyards
Instead of growing super tall, dwarf sunflower varieties are only 2-4 feet tall. They tend to have smaller sunflowers and earlier blooming times.
Although most sunflowers are yellow, others are red or orange.
You can even get ‘teddy’ fuzzy sunflowers!
I love seeing sunflowers open & unfold
Planting a sunflower house or fort
You can plant them into a sunflower house if you have kids!
What is your favorite sunflower type & color?
I too love all varieties of sunflowers, I did plant pole beans in the same space and they both did well.. I plant them for pure pleasure of watching them grow and to see the bees go at them.. my grandkids help me..
Wonderful 🙂
How do you keep the squirrels from digging up the seeds?
I’ve had to pre sprout sunflowers inside then transplant them. Squirrels are relentless, I’m not sure if they eat sprouted sunflower seeds. You can try protecting them with chicken wire until they are a certain height. Best of luck!