by Jennifer Poindexter
What is your favorite flower? I have many, but one of my favorites to grow is a sunflower. They come in many varieties which vary in color and size. When growing just about any plant you learn a few lessons the hard way. However, every mistake happens for a reason.
In my case, the lessons I’ve learned from errors growing sunflowers are now going to benefit you so you don’t have to experience them for yourself. I’m sharing the common mistakes many gardeners make when raising this flower.
If you’re interested in growing sunflowers and want to ensure you avoid as many mistakes as possible, here’s what you should know.
1. Planting Without Sun
You might imagine that most people would plant sunflowers in the sun. Yet, some properties don’t receive enough light.
However, some gardeners plant the sunflower seeds anyway and hope for the best. Don’t do this, or you’ll run into this mistake.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You can avoid this mistake by only planting sunflowers in full sun. It might mean you have to cut the limbs back on a few trees to create a well-lit grow space.
Sunflowers need a minimum of six hours of full sunlight. Without this amount of sun, they probably won’t thrive.
2. Ignoring Pests and Diseases
You should never ignore pests or diseases in your garden. The reason being is they can easily take over your grow space.
Without anything stopping them, pests will eat your sunflower harvest and disease will ruin anything that’s left behind.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You can ignore this mistake by walking through your garden daily. Look for signs of pests or disease. If you notice them, treat them accordingly.
Common pests and diseases, for sunflowers, include aphids, wilt, and mildew. All of these issues can be treated with an insecticide, fungicide, or solarization.
3. Ignoring Weeds
Weeds are another item that you can’t afford to ignore when gardening. Weeds cause your plants to compete for nutrients.
They also create a place for disease and insects to hide. When you remove the weeds, you remove many of these threats.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You can reduce the weeds, surrounding sunflowers, by adding a layer of mulch around the base of your plants.
This will provide a protective barrier. If weeds still manage to pop through the mulch, you should pull them by hand to keep everything under control.
4. Not Providing Proper Care
All plants require some type of care. Without providing basic care, it’s difficult for anything to thrive. Sunflowers are no exception.
Therefore, know what type of care they need prior to planting. Once you’ve planted them, ensure they receive what they need.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
This mistake can be avoided by watering your sunflowers regularly. The deep watering method will encourage deep roots and healthier plants.
You should add a slow-release fertilizer to the soil prior to planting. Sunflowers feed heavily, so ensure the necessary nutrients are available to them throughout the growing season.
5. Planting Too Early
Sunflowers are typically thought of as a summer flower. Therefore, they can’t handle cold temperatures or harsh growing conditions.
Keep this in mind when deciding when to plant sunflowers. Know what the plants need prior to sowing the seed.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
Not only are sunflowers sun-loving plants, but they love warmth as well. For this reason, they shouldn’t be planted until the weather warms up and plans to stay this way.
When the temperatures are consistently 70-degrees Fahrenheit and higher, it’s safe to add these flowers to your grow space.
6. Not Providing Enough Space
There is a right way and a wrong way to plant most flowers. They must be planted at a specific depth and given adequate space between plants.
By not planting seeds at the proper depth, they may not germinate, or they could rot. Improper spacing can lead to disease and weak plants.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
Sunflowers should be planted one inch beneath the surface of the soil. Once the seeds have sprouted, they should be thinned.
Larger sunflower varieties should be provided three feet of space between plants. Smaller sunflower varieties should be given one foot of space between each plant.
7. Not Providing Protection
There are some plants which have more enemies than others. Sunflowers are one of these plants. Not only are they threatened by typical garden pests, but they have predators from above as well.
Plus, sunflowers must be protected from the elements. Warm weather brings storms, and they can bring lots of damage to your sunflowers. Failing to protect your sunflowers could cost you.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
When protecting sunflowers from birds, you should consider placing wire cloth over the seeds and seedlings. This will make it harder for the birds to dig them up or cause damage to them.
Protecting sunflowers from the wind will involve staking the taller plants or growing them next to a building which can provide support and protection. Take these extra steps to ensure your sunflowers are given every opportunity to thrive.
8. Limiting Their Growing Conditions
Another mistake when growing sunflowers is assuming they’re not the plant for you. When you limit their growing abilities, you could miss out.
As many people are deciding to grow more in less space, we’re learning there are many ways to approach gardening. Don’t put sunflowers in a box. They might surprise you.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You can avoid underestimating sunflowers by learning the many ways they can be grown. Sunflowers do well in traditional inground flower beds.
However, smaller varieties can be grown in containers. You can grow both large and small varieties in raised beds. If you have a sunny spot, there might be a sunflower right for your growing area.
9. Not Harvesting and Storing Properly
This was my biggest mistake the first year I grew sunflowers. I saw where people hang their harvested sunflower heads in their chicken coop.
It was a delicious treat for their chickens and seemed feasible. When I harvested my sunflowers, I had too many to feed my chickens at once. I decided to save the sunflower heads in my root cellar. I thought if I hung them, they might last a little longer.
That was a mistake and many of my sunflower heads rotted. Ensure you know how to harvest your sunflowers and save them.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
When harvesting sunflowers, use a sharp pair of shears. This should neatly snip the heads from the stalk of the plant.
Once the heads are removed, hold them over a five-gallon bucket, and shake, to remove the seeds. Dry the seeds and save them in an airtight container until later use.
If you’d like to save smaller sunflower varieties, for a bouquet, snip them further down the plant to ensure there’s still a stem for the flower arrangement.
Place the flowers in water as soon as you can. This should help them to stand firm and avoid any wilt which might occur without water.
These are the mistakes many gardeners, myself included, have made when raising sunflowers. With practice, you learn what works and what doesn’t.
However, if you can learn from the mistakes of those before you, it saves you time and wasted effort. Hopefully, these tips will help you to raise beautiful sunflowers in your different growing areas.
More About Growing Sunflowers
https://extension.umn.edu/flowers/sunflowers
https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g4290
For oast few years, Ive bought one Sun fliwer planted it in a tub. With good soil. And every year they just gradually died. What am I doing wrong. Love them