Hello, Mid-Ohio Valley farmers and gardeners. June 21 marked the Summer Solstice, the actual first day of summer. This is when the sun reaches its highest and northernmost points in the sky here in the Northern Hemisphere. Many gardeners can work well past 9 p.m. in the cool of the evening because this is the “longest day of the year” , providing the maximum hours of daylight for 2022.

A fun and beautiful addition to any garden is to plant some sunflowers (Helianthus annuus). If you have children or grandchildren, plant different varieties of this plant (ornamental and oil seed producers) and watch them grow, some to heights of over 10 feet!

A North America native, the sunflower comes in a variety of sizes, growing habits and colors. It was used by Native Americans, for food, dye and medicine, and extracted the oil for ceremonial body painting and pottery. The Hopi believe that when the sunflowers are numerous, it is a sign that there will be an abundant harvest.

Actually, sunflowers are a major agricultural crop here in the United States and have many uses. Sunflower oil is considered a premium oil due to its light color and mild flavor and is sold in many bird seed mixes. Sunflower seeds are considered a healthy snack food and included in many trail mixes.

Depending on the variety, sunflowers will bloom about 55 to 75 days after planting (ornamentals) – 60 days is a good average. Seed producing varieties may take up to 90 days. Sunflowers can be broadly divided into those grown for production of edible seeds and those grown as ornamentals and cut flowers.

Ornamental and cut flower types, but you can grow the edible varieties for roasting for home use. Seed producing varieties have some interesting characteristics. The heads consist of 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers joined together by a receptacle base. The large petals around the edge of a head are actually individual ray flowers, which do not develop into seed.

Sunflowers of course need full sun. Directly sow seeds in prepared rows in the garden or landscape beds. The most critical planting requirement is adequate moisture. Seeding depth should be 1 to 1.5 inches, and leave about 20-30 inches between rows. After sowing the seeds, keep the soil moist (water lightly every day if the weather is dry). The only situations likely to severely limit sunflowers are poorly drained soils or soils that would prevent taproots from penetrating. Sunflowers can survive dry spells through its extensive tap root.

The sunflower by far is the best example and most studied plant which displays a phenomenon called heliotropism. Young sunflower plants follow the sun from east to west during the day and then reorient themselves during the night to face east in anticipation of the sunrise.

Light from the sun provides the solar energy used by every plant for photosynthesis. Heliotropism, or “solar tracking” is simply a plant following the movement of the sun during the day. Rooted in ancient Greek, “helio” refers to the sun and “tropism” means a turning or movement of a living organism toward or away from an external stimulus, such as light, heat, or gravity.

Young sunflower plants are all about efficiency and heliotropism optimizes light capture, increasing it by 10 percent or more. Increased light capture improves plant performance with more leaf area and increased biomass.

Scientists have shown sunflowers perform this by the coordinate action of two mechanisms. Light-signaling pathways set a basic rate of growth for the plant, based on available light. The circadian or internal clock of the plant is influenced by the direction of light and causes the stem to grow more on one side than another. This is how the plant performs its daily dance from east to west each day.

At the final stage of flower development, called anthesis, sunflowers conclude their solar tracking ways and turn their flowerheads eastward. These east-facing sunflowers heat up more quickly in the morning making them more attractive to pollinating insects such as honeybees.

Sunflowers come in heights ranging from 1-8 feet and also come in a wide range of flower colors. There is a sunflower to match every gardener’s taste and purpose. Giant sunflowers like Kong, the multi branching Italian White and the petite Teddy Bear, a double producer with flowers full of petals with no central disk at all, are a few examples.

Bright yellow will always be popular, but you can also choose from creamy white, bronze, mahogany, rusty red, burgundy and orange. Some types produce flowers with more than one color. The center disk of the sunflower also adds to the display and goes through color changes as the flower matures and seeds form.

Sunflowers grown for cut flowers generally produce numerous flowers on a more bushy plant than the types grown for seeds, which generally produce a single, large head. The multiple-flowering habit makes these types more colorful and helps them fit into traditional flowerbeds more appropriately.

If you want to grow sunflowers for the delicious, nutritious seeds, make sure you choose varieties bred for seed production, such as Mammoth Russian – also known as Mammoth, Russian Giant and Gray Stripe. These tall-growing sunflowers produce a single enormous flower at the top of the plant. To grow a really big seed head, apply general-purpose fertilizer when the flower head begins to appear.

Looking for more information? Contact me at the WVU Extension Office at 304-424-1960 or email me at jj.barrett@mail.wvu.edu with your gardening questions. Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

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