A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Mammoth Sunflowers!

Hey everybody!

Im growing some Mammoth Sunflowers......anyone who has experience, does this seem right? They are about 6-8' tall, and the developing flower heads are only 2-3" across. Are they normal, or leggy?? Funny thing is, the shortest flower has the biggest bud, and the tallest ones that are in the most full sun of all have the smallest.

They are all growing in soil enriched with compost, and get lots of water and pretty much full sun.

I want some GIANT blooms! Do they take off and grow like crazy at some point?

Thanks!

Here 'Sparagus,
Check out the A Sunflower Garden, I... can access, #1~#4 also from that post..

Someone who lives a street over from me has an entire yard filled with sunflowers. The entire perimeter of his/her home is lined with those paul bunyon sunflowers--the heads on them are HUGE! It was amazing how tall they are--and even with a 25 mph wind they weren't moving much!!

My next door neighbors were from Latvia and were BIG gardeners. They had sunflowers that were 12 feet tall with 1 and 1/2 foot blooms on them. They were bringing us dillweed and sunflowers all the times and the old Latvian lady ADORED our kids. I still remember her saying to them, "Gives to me much kiss!"

New Member:

My sunflowers are 12' to 14' tall, with massive heads. HELP!!!!!

The heads are all turning down, the petals are wilting, browning & falling off. they are so full of seed!!!

What did I do to them?

Cbrass,

I dont think you did anything wrong, everyone I know that's grown the big kind has that happen. Maybe they are "done" ! Im no expert. But I read recently, you can tell if the seeds are ready if they are filled out inside the shells. Try one and see!

I obviously have the opposite problem! I have one mini head on top of mammoth size plants!

We had a huge heat wave! I had been watering with a hose head, slow trickle, broke down and bought a good soaker hose. Still just a slow trickle but the feet were really getting water properly...

It almost looks like the canes sucked the water up to the heads till they could burst and then they went, plwewewew?

We have "silt" dirt here. I amended the soil with peat moss. Plopped twenty seeds in and got twenty humonguss towering beauties! At least they were last week! I have to change the water on my "compost" garden so I'll pull a seed off, I guess..

Nope. They still have little yellow tinge, with fat bumblebees all over them! I sure hope they are doing what they are supposed to be doing!!!

Are your plants able to get full sun?

That's normal for sunflowers. They have gone to seed. You can cut the heads and hang them up to dry, or leave them as they are and the birds, especially Goldfinches will SWARM to them to eat the seeds and give you GREAT photo opportunities and enjoyment. That's what I do with my sunflowers.

My sunflowers have always done the same thing. I've never intended to harvest the seeds, the sunflowers simply serve as a "hide-away" for some eye sore objects.

This year I did have something a little different, however. I had the usual 12-15' plants, but I had several of them produce a cluster of 3 heads that were only about 3-5" across instead of the monsterous 1' across. And the petals were a reddish orange instead of yellow. I'm not complaining, it's a welcomed change! I couldn't tell you the name, however, I just know that it was a giant sunflower.

This is my first time growing sunflowers. They are 7-8 feet tall with fairly large flowers. They are so heavy they are leaning over really bad. One plant has at last count 20 flowers on it where the rest only have the one big one. Now the leaves are turning brown and drying up and they dont look as good as they once did.