On a whim I saw this packet of seeds at the store for “Massive” sunflowers and bought them. I put them in various spots in my landscape, here and there, and boy, are they massive.
The leaves are absolutely huge, the stalk is atleast 3 inches in diameter, and the flowers are massive as well. The one pictures is now 18 inches across and thick with seed, I kid you not. Huge flowers.
They also grew to about 10 feet tall, as shown by the other one in the picture below. I’ll try harvesting the seeds from them, but mostly I grew them as a curiousity and for a bit of height, and I am pleased. I’ll probably get more next year.
September 5th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Wow! Did they all get that tall? You’ll have some great Winter birdfood.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
That is GIANT! When I was growing up as a kid my grandma’s house used to have big ones, I don’t know if they were that big but they were still fun
September 10th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Now that’s an awesome sunflower. There is a house that is on one of the streets that I pass on my daily walks. They have a row of huge sunflower plants but your picture makes theirs seem rather stunted in growth.
But…
A friend and I went fishing a week or two ago and on the drive up I saw these huge plants that towered about the corn in their garden. I was sure they were sunflowers but it was still not quite light enough to see them clearly.
On the way home I made a point of stopping and looking at them. They were massive, bigger than any I have ever seen.
Your are about the same size, maybe a bit taller. Very cool.
I think I will give them a go next year.
September 10th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
As a child, my parents planted sunflowers. I remember looking up at them from my five-year-old eyes and being amazed at how tall they were. Looks like I could still look up in amazement at these flowers. They are truly large.
March 1st, 2009 at 2:22 pm
How did you get that beautiful foliage on your sunflower? I get plenty of flowers on my sunflower plants, but the foliage starts browning and dying from the ground up. The only overhead watering is from rain. They never look like your sunflower picture or like all the sunflowers on TV garden shows. Thank you.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:20 am
These are wonderful! I just planted a couple packets of “giant sunflower” seeds to germinate in peat pots. I think they will make an awesome screening between my house and my neighbor’s yard!
Did you have trouble with them falling over?
April 25th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
No, no trouble falling over in the least.
The stem (trunk?) was thick, and woody, and very strong. I needed a saw to cut it down. At the base it was bigger around than a pop can.
July 3rd, 2011 at 7:11 pm
I am going to grow sunflowers