Hiya i was just wondering if anyone can give me some advice on what to do with sunflower heads as they start to die off as i heard somewhere that you can dry them out then freeze the seeds for planting next year but i have no idea how to go about it and would be grateful for any advice as the one my daughter grew from school this year was amazing and would love to try to grow more next year. thanks for any help i can get Fiona
Fiona: I never heard of freezing them,seems to mean the seeds would get frost bite.I put my flower bulbs in the fridge so there cool.You could try it that way.
Fiona: With sunflower seeds you dont need to refridgerate. Just take all the seeds off the head.. keep what you want to use to plant next year and then the rest can go to the birds outside. I hang my heads on my fence upside down and the birds spend weeks eating the seed. I grow giant sunflowers and every year I harvest about 40 seeds from one head and give the rest to the birds.. Once you have dried the heads out take the seeds and just keep them in a paper bag in a cool dry place.. Dont put in plastic bags because if there is a tad bit of moisture they will rot or grow mold. So paper bags are best. Good luck!
Rose: thank you Rose i will do that tomorrow - its a giant sunflower kayleigh grew and stood at 7ft at its height but it was beautiful as had over 20 heads on it too so would love to grow some from it next year too as seems a shame to waste it - and there will be plenty for the birds too
Fiona: You know until this year I never saw sunflowers grow more than one head.. I thought it was a rare phenomenon but apparently I just never had the luck of growing sunflowers with more than one head.. This year all mine had a ton of tiny heads shooting out from the 'branches' or the big leaves. So this is common?
Rose: i was the same as you where i always thought a sunflower only ever had one head so was shocked when ours grew loads and i have seen in a few gardens that there are a few sunflowers like it - they sure do look pretty
Hi Rose There are hundreds of varieties of sunflowers. Some grow short (3-5 feet) and are branching, meaning they have many flowers from one central stem. Others can be 12 feet tall with one giganting flower at the top and smaller flowers coming out along the stem below. It just depends on what variety you have. We have planted some called sunbeam, moonbright, sunbright, Van Gogh Mix, Italian white, and lemon, just to name a few. They can have all different colored disks and petals
I just read your question and I'll tell you what we do at my greenhouse. We grow hundreds of sunflowers for making bouquets amd we cut the heads of any flowers we don't use and put them in our boiler room to dry out. In the spring we shake out the seeds that have dried and replant them. It is very easy to propogate new sunflower plants with last year's seeds. A lot of our plants reseed themselves in the fields, just by the seeds falling to the ground in the fall and wintering over in the soil. You don't need to freeze the seeds, just keep them dry and cool. The same process is used for morning glories, which also reseed themselves, of course.
ajtgirl: thank you very much for your help - i will see to them tomorrow as we have had rain all day today and gardening was the last thing i wanted to do lol