Organic Gardening Magazine recently ran a detailed article on sunflowers. The article offers insight on which areas are most successful at growing the flowers, as well as light requirements and the best way to prepare the seeds.
"Varieties thrive largely as annuals in all USDA Plant Hardiness Zones, from Alaska to Hawaii. After all, this plant, made iconic by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, was first cultivated in the American Southwest around 1000 B.C. and developed for commercial use in the mid-1800s in Russia... Today, Russia, Ukraine, and below-the-equator Argentina are among the largest growers of sunflowers in the world."
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| Johnny's Ring of Fire |
"Despite their bright collars of petals, sunflowers, which come in single- and multistem varieties, aren't really single flowers but 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers. The ray petals around the circumference have no stamens or pistils. Their function is to attract pollinators to the landing pad or "disk," since sunflowers rely heavily on bees and other pollinators to reproduce..."
See all of Johnny's varieties of sunflowers at our website