Flower Feature | Sunflowers

These bright yellow beautiful flowers are heat-tolerant, pest-resistant and perfect for pollinators like bees, butterflies and birds. They are great as cut flowers or planted in your garden, plus they are a good source of food for birds!

Want to add sunflowers to your home? Take a look at these tips, tricks and tidbits about everything you need to know about these fun flowers.

How Long Do They Take to Bloom?

This is definitely a flower that you will want to keep in your summer flower rotation because not only are they gorgeous, but they also don’t take very long to bloom. On average, they only take 80 to 95 days to mature. Growing time is dependent on variety and planting conditions. 

The largest types of sunflowers can grow over 16 feet high, while some of the smaller types developed for small spaces and living in a planter often grow no larger than a foot!

Regardless of the variety, you always want to make sure sunflowers grow in a sunny spot. Having the word in their name isn’t just to describe their color, these flowers grow best in locations with 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight daily. In order for them to flower well, they usually require long and warm summers. 

When to Plant 

In order to ensure the best growth process for sunflowers, it’s best to plant the seeds into your garden or outdoor planter after the spring frost period has passed or any time the soil has warmed to at least 50°F.

Depending on your location, this time of year can vary between April and mid-June or mid-March and early April. 

How to Plant

Before planting, make sure you are confident in where you decide to plant them. Sunflowers don’t like to have their roots disturbed during the growth process so it is recommended to do direct-sowing instead of attempting to transplant them from one location to another.

When planting sunflower seeds, be sure to put them 1 to 11/2 inches deep in the soil and about 6 inches apart from each other. If you are planting rows of them, allow extra space between the rows (about 30 inches) so they aren’t crowded.

To encourage strong root growth and protection from strong winds blowing them over, lightly mix in fertilizer when planting the seeds.

If there are birds around your sunflowers looking for seeds, place netting over the planted area. Keep the netting there until the seeds germinate and the birds will leave them alone.

Sunflower Care

While your sunflowers are still small you don’t want to drown them, so make sure to water about 3 to 4 inches from the plant around the roots. You can also put snail or slug bait around the stem to protect them. Water using this process once a week.

Once your sunflowers are mature and established, water them less frequently but with more water to encourage deep rooting. Depending on the weather, continue to water your sunflowers once a week using several gallons of water.

You can feed them with fertilizer but sparingly. A good way to ensure you don’t over fertilize your sunflowers is to build a moat in a circle about 18 inches around the plant and add diluted fertilizer water. Do not do this every time you water them.

Some taller varieties require support for their stems for a period of time. You can use Bamboo or other gardening stakes to help keep your sunflowers growing upright.

When the season comes to an end, you can harvest the seeds for snacking and birdseed or you can keep some to replant next year.

Cutting Them for Bouquets

To bring your sunflowers inside for a beautiful bouquet, you want to make sure you are doing everything you can to maintain their integrity. 

It is recommended that you cut the stems early in the morning to avoid wilting so the flower bud won’t have a chance to open and will encourage a side bloom. 

Arrange your flowers in a tall vase to give them good support for their heads and change their water once a day to keep them looking fresher longer.

Above all else, handle your sunflowers with care. Sunflowers should last at least a week in water at room temperature if handled properly. 

Source: Almanac