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Garden Giants: Bright, tall sunflowers are a symbol of summertime gardening
Journal Photo by David Rolfe
The width of a sunflower bloom is called the head by growers, and 32 inches across is the record.
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Published: August 22, 2009
If the tomato is the symbol of the summer vegetable garden, the sunflower is its floral counterpart.
Big, brilliant and over the top. It's large, very large. Though the world record belongs to a grower in the Netherlands who grew one that was 25-feet tall, it is not uncommon to see sunflowers that are 12-feet tall. The width of
the flower, referred to as a "head" by growers, is another hotly pursued record. Thirty two inches across is the record but a third of that is extreme.
I recently visited Hope and Mack Williams. They grow sunflowers in their backyard. Hope, 64, was a registered nurse at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center for 19 years. She retired in 2007.
She decided that gardening was one of the things she wanted pursue.
If there was a handbook for growing giant sunflowers, the Williamses would have broken just about every rule. They started the plants in peat pots, used a post-hole digger to plant them in the lawn, and they don't fertilize or water them.
When I went to see the plants, they were growing out of the middle of the lawn in the backyard, no beds or defined planting space surrounding them, no mulch, no cultivated soil, nothing, just Bermuda grass right up to the stems.
It's hard to understand their success, but the sunflowers I saw were 8- or 9-feet tall before they started to bend under the weight of the enormous heads that measured about 14 inches across. Within these heads, there were rows of seeds in a tight concentric pattern.
"I grow them for the red birds" Hope said. "I just cut them down and lay them on the ground, and they come and eat them," she said. This year, her second growing sunflowers, Hope plans to enter her sunflowers in the Dixie Classic Fair. She will need to take steps to make sure that the cardinals and other seed-loving birds don't get to them first.
The sunflower is a native of the western half of North America. Seeds have been found in archeological remains dating to 3000 B.C. The Incas are credited with developing the first large-seed sunflowers, and the Spanish introduced the plant to Europe by the 1500s.
The Russians started to grow sunflowers commercially for the oil pressed from the seed. They developed the popular Russian Mammoth variety.
There are other giants in the sunflower world. Those who specialize in such pursuits choose among a handful of varieties, such as Titan, Mongolian Giant, Russian Mammoth, Sunzilla and California Greystripe.
Just as there is little subtlety to the sunflower, there is little finesse to its culture. They like lots of everything: sun, water and fertilizer.
It's too late to start a sunflower crop from seed at this point. They take about 100 days to mature, and we only have 60 to 80 days left before frost. If you want to try growing something gargantuan, you will have to wait until spring.
Prepare a site by digging deeply and amending the soil with composted manure or slow-release fertilizer. Sunflowers are heavy feeders. Thin the seedlings to about a foot and half apart. Spacing that is too close will make for weak plants that are more susceptible to toppling in high winds.
Plants should be watered and fertilized weekly if your goal is mammoth plants and flower heads. As the petals begin to fade, you can fit the head with an old potato or onion sack to preserve the seed. If your goal is to feed the birds, you can let the head hang, preserve it and dry it for winter feeding, or scrape the seed once completely dry and put it in your feeder.
If you are not feeling generous, sunflower seeds are easily roasted in the oven. Just sprinkle them on a baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the seeds turn a golden brown. Be sure to save some unroasted seeds for next year's garden.
One odd property of sunflowers is that the hulls of the seed have chemical inhibitors that can influence seed germination and plant growth. Gardeners should be cautious about planting around bird feeders. Keep the area where sunflowers have been planted clean of spent seed.
Dixie Classic Fair flower shows
All entries must be preregistered by Sept. 1. This is a policy change from previous years when entries could be registered at the door. Registration forms are available at the Forsyth County Public Library; the Garden Club Council's office,100 Reynolda Village; or call the fair office at 727-2236 and to have a form mailed to you.
Forms may also be downloaded from the Internet. Go to www.dcfair.com, click on the purple ribbon and select the category that you want to compete in.
Question of the week
Dear David: I need help with my fig tree. I moved to East Bend in 2005 when I purchased a house. I know nothing about fig trees, but I was delighted to find a full tree next to the east side of my house. The first two years it had a lot of fruit and was full of bees and beautiful, dark-blue butterflies. In April of 2007, a heavy frost killed all the new leaves. They turned black and dropped. Later in the summer, a second batch of leaves appeared, but there wasn't any fruit. Last year, fruit was sparse, and this spring only the portion of the tree closest to my house had leaves. -- Barbara Keppers
Dear Barbara: I often get questions about figs, a fruit whose abundance is often determined by the weather. This year seems to be a good one.
An old tree such as yours probably needs some pruning. Pruning is best done after the last spring frost and before the tree breaks into new growth. It sounds as if your tree has dead wood that should be removed. Up to one third of live growth may also be pruned.
Figs are pretty tough, despite a reputation for being easily damaged by cold weather. This can hurt fruit production, but it is not usually an issue as far as plant health is concerned.
Fertilization is not crucial, though an old tree might benefit from a spring mulch of composted leaves and manure.
You may also consider propagating your fig if you are concerned about its continued health. Propagation is simple. Take a foot-long, dormant branch that has a piece of second-year wood at the end. Stick it 4-to-6-inches deep in a pot equipped with drainage holes and fill it with sand. Keep the soil moist and keep it out of direct sunlight. In a month or so it will have roots and be ready to plant.
■ If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal.com.
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