Summer Sunshine Sowing the seeds today to enjoy our very own stars later in the year

In the garden, the sunflower is the easiest, most accommodating plant. It is quite greedy but also self-regulating, which means it always grows proportionately to the food it is given. Planted in a poor soil, it will only grow small, but its flower(s) will always be the right size for its stem, so will not look ill or deprived. Put in richer ground, it can grow quite large, but will always supply an adequately muscular stem and root system to hold it. I am talking here of the relatively un-aldultered wild one. Hybrids are another thing altogether and some are forced by their genes to grow in the most peculiar ways. I once planted seeds of the ‘Starbust’ sorts, thinking their double flowers would have potential as a cut bloom, but they only grew a foot high, and looked stumpy, the stem being so short I couldn’t even use them in bouquets. I also tried the branched sorts, which promised not one blossom at the end of a stem, but a myriad of them, all summer long. They did flower a lot, it must be said, but they often fell prey to the wind and rain, being so top heavy and I now reserve them for the most sheltered corners of the garden. The only one I grow without fear of collapse is the sweet ‘Italian White’ which has flowers demure enough for the stem. In truth, I probably would grow it even if it needed staking since it is of such a lovely shade of pale cream. It is, I read, of another species of sunflower called Helianthus debilis, which might explain its good humour and genteel behaviour.
Not all hybrids are bad sunflowers though. Some of them have beautifully intense colours and good vigour, which to the florist is a great help. I adore the naïve nature of the wild sunflower in bouquets, but I also like the more regimented nature of the ‘professional’ strains of sunflowers. To most people, a cut sunflower should have a black centre and saturated yellow petals and one will find this in the variety ‘Sunbright’. It is a very even strain that will give you perfectly formed blooms, all of the same size. The seeds will set you a lot of money however and need to be bought on a yearly basis as it is a sterile hybrid. This does have an advantage however, that of not having pollen and therefore not shedding on furniture etc. as the normal sunflower does. If you want a more lemony coloured flower, plant ‘Sunrich Lemon’. I tried the promising ‘Ikarus’ which also had bright lemon yellow flowers, but it disappointed me. Personally I like the Japanese ‘Taiyo’ (which means sunshine in Japanese) best, although it does grow a larger heart and isn’t all too easy to use in a mix bouquet because of its size.
Although I prefer to grow yellow sunflowers, there are a couple of other colours I like as well. ‘Ruby Eclipse’ (right) is probably the best pink one. It has beautiful pale salmoney pink and crimson combination with a near-black heart on strong but slender stems. ‘Terra Cotta’ has unlikely but lovely orange-brown flowers highlighted by a navy blue centre. ‘Ring of Fire’ is a bit coarse a plant, but is very aptly named and quite wonderful, pale yellow with a ring of red. There are also various dark red ones, fascinating in their own way, but all a bit too gloomy for my liking. I grew several different ones when I used to sell them to florists and I would suggest, if you must try one, ‘Moulin Rouge’. All of these couloured sunflowers have a branched habit and therefore smallish flowers, which work well in a border, but alas usually need a bit of support.

One cannot write of the sunflower without mentioning the giant Russian ones. They are truly the goliaths of the flower garden, reaching easily 12ft in a good year. If planted away from strong drafts they are quite capable of supporting themselves and never require staking either. They never cease to amaze me, each year I plant a handful of seeds of two varieties: ‘Tarahumara’, my favourite with floppy petals and white seeds and ‘Rostov’ because it is the ultimate giant with pendant plate-sized brown heart surrounded by a thin rim of petals. The birds love these two much and it is a delight to see them perch on the flowerheads and feed on the seeds in late autumn.