Sunflowers -- Two Kinds

Jenna wanted to plant sunflowers this year. Entirely her choice. So, I figured out that we could plant 23 per 12' x 4' raised bed planter if we put 8 down either side and 7 down the middle, spaced so that they were 18" apart. What we had on hand were a variety known as lemon sunflowers. I bought two packets of seeds last year because I had the intention of participating in some sort of bee counting exercise and lemon sunflowers were what was called for. I never planted any, so we had just about enough to fill two planters (56 sunflower plants). Of course, once planted, not all came up. (I even pulled one out by accident.)

The obvious solution was to go buy more seeds. The variety that was in the store was called mammoth. So, in the spots were the lemon sunflowers didn't sprout, I replanted mammoth. Eventually, all the spots I had reserved for seeds had sunflowers growing in them. The lemon variety were supposed to get between 6 and 8 feet tall. The mammoth variety was supposed to get 12 feet tall.

Before Jenna left for the first of her many summer camps, I took a photo of her standing in front of the plants. She is 5'2" or so. The ones that bloomed at this point in time were mostly the lemon variety sunflowers. When I first saw them, I was confused because I expected there to be just one bloom and that at the top. Lemon sunflowers produce multiple flowers. By now, because I figured out how to grown them but not harvest them, the gold finches have pretty much stripped them of seeds.

On the other hand, the mammoth sunflowers are behaving more like I expected. The flowers are bigger and there is just one per plant. They are coming in much later. And true to what was promised on the package, the stalks are much taller. I think 12' may be just about what the tallest among them are. Maybe by the time they are all pollinated, I will have figured out how to harvest the seeds before the birds get all of them. Right now, as you can see in the photo, the bees are just getting around to pollinating them. (Not my bees; the hive died.) I think the bee in the photo is actually a bumble bee.

So, Jenna's idea has turned into an interesting plant. I think she just wanted to see the flowers and doesn't care about the seeds. The birds clearly care about the seeds. I can imagine growing some of both varieties each year. Easy to grow. Big! And useful for someone.

I learned that there are two major classes of sunflower seeds. What they call confectioner (meaning, I suppose that the seeds are good for eating as a snack) and oil producing. I believe what I have planted are all confection types. So, if I actually plan this for next year, I would like to experiment with some oil producing varieties.