How To Grow Sunflowers

So, we're going to talk about how to grow sunflowers. There are so many different varieties of sunflowers available these days. From the regular one, you know, what everybody thinks when they think of a sunflower: huge, towering plant with a big yellow flower head on the top, and then you've also got these gorgeous really deep bruised colours sunflowers as well, and also multi-headed sunflowers that really do cheer up any kind of border.

Now, firstly, what you need to do, you need to have your packet of seeds, check the date on the back as well. There are growing instructions always at the back of seed packets; that gives you an idea. Then, you can either grow them on a seed tray or straight into individual pots.

I prefer to put them straight into individual pots and then that saves me too much moving later on. So firstly, you need your seed compost and fill up your pot with seed compost, making sure that the compost is nice and moist, and then you just want to make a little hole in the middle there because they are quite big seeds, sunflower seeds, and the general rule of farmers is that you plant seeds twice the depth of the side that they are. You will find that the seeds generally come in foil sealed packs which means that they'll last for quite a really long time.

These are nice big seeds, so they are easy to handle. Now, what I also like to do is to plant several in the same pot, because that way, you know, if one doesn't do so well, another one might do better. So put the seeds in, into the holes that you've made, like so.

I'm just going to put those back in the pack. Then I'm going to dress up over the top, pressing it down gently and you carry on doing that with your hole pack into several different pots. Now, like all seed germination, the seeds need two things: they need warmth, they need humidity, three things, they need light! But they don't need direct sun light.

So, what you want to do is place your little pots into your propagator, we've got a lid to cover it, and then place on a nice bright window sill, but out of direct sunlight. And once the seed lids have come up and they are easier to handle, you can then put them out into individual pots and grow them on a bit further. But before you plant your sunflowers out in the garden, you need to make sure that all risk at first is gone.

They are very tender initially and they are very prompt to be eaten by slugs and snakes. So it's always a good idea to protect them. There are three here in this pot and they can be planted out individually, either into new pots now or into the ground.

And that's how you plant sunflowers. .