Sunflowers

Anybody grow them? Not looking to do it commercially just for the wildlife and something to look at. Some questions.

do you plant in spring or fall?
do the seed need to be tilled in or just spread on top of the ground?
is special seed required and where do you find it?
will they regrow by themselves year to year?

Anything anybody can offer about Sunflowers will be helpful.

Thank you.

I’ve always wanted to plant the giant sunflowers. Just never saw the seeds in the spring…I need to fix that.

Thanks Dutch!

Although sunflowers can be started indoors in individual peat pots, it is easiest to sow seeds directly into the soil after all danger of spring frost is past. However, where the growing season is short, sunflowers can be safely planted up to 2 weeks before the last expected spring frost.

As a rule we try to plant sunflower along a fence but the spring weather this year got in the way of that. Sunflower is a spring-plant crop.

You do have to plant them as birds will clean up anything on the top. I’d go purchase a couple 50 pound bags of black oil seed used to feed birds and use that for planting. Bear will eat the whole heads [experience here] and birds and deer will thank you for the rest. This stuff always seems to have a half-dozen plants come from dropped seed the year before. Sunflower will self seed if sufficient seed makes it to the ground and not eaten but planting will give a better coverage.

I can’t speak on fertilizing but can say when we plant the fence, or where te birds have missed seed under feeders, no fertilizer is being used.

I’m not positive but I think a corn head ona planter will work for sunflower. Maybe a bean head. Have to ask at a grain elevator or seed dealer on that.

Brian….I can get a package of seed to you this winter so you’ll be ready in the spring on the giant heads.

Thanks for reminding me. I used to grow giant sunflowers as a kid, I should take it up again.

Every year it seemed they got taken out by a wind storm after the head got heavy.

I pick up a pack of seeds at the local gardening store and plant them directly in the ground. If they don’t come up in a few days they are bad or something ate them, so just re-plant. I grow them and never pick them. I just leave them for the wildlife.
Tip – soak the seeds in water the night before you plant them. It softens the shell and they spout faster.

They are not difficult to grow. And once established, you will get volunteers for years. I see no reason you could not plant in the fall. No reason to till in unless the critters will eat the seeds. Note: I grew Mammoth Sunflowers one year. Cut them down when still green, long before they dry out. You will not be able to pull them out of the ground and the stems are tough. Hard work with a machete even to cut down. I used a chainsaw, they were very dry. Neat though, plants near 15 feet tall with huge heads. They liked Miracle Grow! Dried the heads that threw them out on the snow thinking the deer would eat them, Nope! Weird. Did have a huge acorn mast that year though. Who knows?

robby wrote:

Dried the heads that threw them out on the snow thinking the deer would eat them, Nope! Weird. Did have a huge acorn mast that year though. Who knows?

The giant plants make striped seed and lots of critters won’t eat them, including deer or bear. Black Oil seed, bird seed type sunflower, is what wildlife like. The squirrels around here won’t even eat the big seeds from the giant sunflowers. I think wildlife recognizes the oil content of the black seeds.

Black sunflower field down the road.

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