SUNFLOWER (Helianthus annuus) – 1 litre – 2 in a pot

Donna says that “Sunflowers are like natures brightest smiles!” – they always make her laugh for their simplicity and sheer joy.

We are growing 3 different types of sunflowers: The first is “Titan” with its enormous sized blooms that can be up to 20″ in diameter! This type is ideal for wildlife food and great for back of border. Height 3.5m (12′). Easy to grow and a real favourite with children. Flowers very large daisies with brightly coloured petals. Use petals and seeds in salads and cakes.

Our next offering is Little Leo – and we thought to grow these for you if you did not have the room for a giant.  Little Leo is ideal for pots on the patio, but these multi-headed little darlings are still excellent for the pollinators and the birds.

Lastly, we are growing “Velvet Queen” – we just couldn’t resist the dark shades of red to dark claret, with a chocolate centre. Impressive backdrop to borders, as a screen or cut flower.  The pollinators adore them and, of course so do the birds if you leave the spent flower heads to provide food for them – goldfinches, chaffinches are often seen here in the autumn time en masse having such a good feed from them and all the other plants we leave to set seed – Donna thinks we will all feel like “we are doing our bit” if we share seeds with nature at the end of the year – so don’t dead head when you don’t need to, and if you do don’t forget to leave some…..

Sunflower heads are commonly thought to follow the sun. It is, however, only the immature flower heads that actually exhibit this phenomenon, not the open flowers.

Sunflowers can be used to remove toxic chemicals from soil and have been used to cleanse land following nuclear power station leaks.