Sunflowers are easy to grow from seed and fun for all the family. Learn how to grow them, in our guide.
The sunflower is one of the nation’s best-loved flowers. Although most varieties have yellow blooms, you can grow sunflowers with rusty-red, green and even white flowers.
Annual sunflowers are fast growers and can reach a height of 2m or more in just three months. Bear in mind that their growth rate and eventual height depend on factors like variety, availability of food and water, and weather conditions, so youre not always guaranteed the heights predicted on your seed packet. For best results, grow your sunflowers in rich soil in open ground, in a sunny, sheltered spot, and water and feed frequently.
Sunflowers bloom from summer to autumn. Depending on the variety, annual sunflowers take 11-18 weeks to flower from seed. With that in mind, its a good idea to sow sunflower seed every couple of weeks, so youll have a constant supply of cheerful blooms throughout summer.
Sunflowers are easy to grow from seed and are ideal for growing with children. They bear impressive, long-lasting flowers, and look fantastic in gardens and allotments. They also make an excellent cut flower. They are non-toxic to pets and humans.
Perennial sunflowers come back year after year but annual types flower, set seed and die in one year.
Did you know? Sunflowers are related to Jerusalem artichokes, Helianthus tuberosus. If you plant Jerusalem artichokes they will bear beautiful, sunflower-like blooms, provided conditions are hot enough and they receive enough sunshine.
In times of hardship, it can be difficult to find hope. But as the moving children’s book “A Place Where Sunflowers Grow” shows, even in the darkest of circumstances, beauty can still bloom This powerful story illustrates how we can overcome adversity with courage, creativity, and human connection.
The History Behind the Book
“A Place Where Sunflowers Grow” tells the tale of a young Japanese American girl named Mari, whose family was forced into an internment camp during World War II. This fictional story was inspired by author Amy Lee-Tai’s own family history. Her grandparents helped establish an art school in the Topaz internment camp, where they taught Mari’s real-life counterpart – Lee-Tai’s mother.
Lee-Tai wanted to share her family’s experience through the eyes of a child. She worked with illustrator Felicia Hoshino, who also had a personal connection to this history through her own family. Together, they created a story that conveys both the injustice of the internment camps and the resilience of those trapped within them.
Finding Beauty in Bleak Surroundings
At the start of the book Mari feels hopeless. She and her family have been displaced from their California home and now live in a barren barrack in the Utah desert. She feels that everything has been taken from her.
When Mari attends her first art class, she struggles to come up with anything to draw. But with her teacher’s encouragement to depict something from her life before the camp, Mari illustrates her vibrant backyard garden. This uplifting memory from home brings a smile to her face.
Creating this art helps Mari find beauty in bleak surroundings. She starts decorating her family’s barrack with colorful drawings that remind them all of better times. Through her creative spirit, she finds purpose.
Cultivating Connections Amid Hardship
As Mari continues attending art classes, she begins forming a friendship with a fellow classmate named Aiko. Having a companion makes Mari look forward to the walk home from school, distracting her from the camp’s harsh conditions.
Aiko gives Mari the courage to open up and ask questions about their situation that she’d been afraid to voice before. Their bond blossoms through sharing stories and ideas During a time of disconnection, they cultivate human connection.
Finding Hope Through Perseverance
Earlier in the story, Mari had planted sunflower seeds with her mother but doubted anything could grow in the desert sand. After months of patiently watering the seeds, she is filled with hope at the sight of tiny sprouts peeking through – a sign of the beauty that can emerge through dedication, even in the harshest climates.
The book’s message is that there are always things to live for, if we open our eyes to them. Friendship, family, nature, art – these can sustain us through all seasons, leading us from the bleakness of winter to the blossoms of spring. If we nurture our spirits, inner light will shine through.
Why This Book Matters
“A Place Where Sunflowers Grow” provides an accessible way for children to learn about the injustice of Japanese American internment. It opens young readers’ eyes to this difficult history through a relatable child’s perspective.
But more than just informing, at its heart this book is about inspiration. In its pages, we see how Mari finds light through creativity, human connection, and perseverance. We’re reminded that even in life’s darkest chapters, there is still beauty to be found if we have hope. This timeless message can speak to all of us, no matter our age or circumstances.
By honoring the past while offering an uplifting vision for the future, “A Place Where Sunflowers Grow” shares a story that can cultivate hope in readers of all ages. Its lessons on finding beauty in brokenness ring true in every time, place, and season.
How to harvest sunflower seeds
After flowering, sunflower heads develop masses of seed. You can harvest these to use in cooking, but bear in mind you will need to remove the tough seed coat before eating. Better still, remove the seeds from the seedhead and leave them to dry for a few days, before storing in a paper envelope in a dry spot, so you can sow them the following year. Make sure you leave some seeds for the birds, too.
How to plant sunflowers
If your garden has a lot of slugs and snails, your sunflowers may benefit from being potted on into larger pots of fresh compost, then hardened off before planting out into the soil. This means the plants will be bigger when in their final growing positions, and therefore more resilient to slugs and snails. Regardless of how big they are, dont plant seedlings out until the soil has warmed considerably and the risk of frost has passed.
Watch Monty Don sow sunflower seeds as part of his giant sunflower trial, in this clip from Gardeners World:
When planting out, prepare the soil by removing weeds and if necessary add plenty of organic matter such as compost or well-rotted manure. Plant the sunflowers at the same depth they were in the pot. Water well and stake taller varieties with a bamboo cane or similar.
Here, Monty plants out his sunflowers and explains how to stake them: