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| Sunflower, Pastiche Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
Most of us are familiar with the bright and cheerful sunflower. These North American native flowers are easy to grow and provide not only beautiful flowers but a wealth of pollen and nectar for beneficial insects.
In addition to growing them for the home garden, many flower farmers have learned that sunflowers are among their most profitable crops. They make a focal point in any arrangement and are in high demand by florists and consumers. Field varieties are also grown throughout the US for sunflower seed oil.
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| Sunflower, Autumn Beauty Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
Most recently breeders and seed specialists were asked by the flower growing industry and florists to breed sunflowers with certain characteristics. This included types that produced a single stem and were pollenless. The reason for these traits was that the single stem types had more manageable stem length and thickness and the lack of pollen provided a flower that could be used without concern about possible damage to clothing or furniture.
Also, florists asked for pollenless sunflowers for applications like wedding work, where a regular sunflower could shed the pollen and stain or damage wedding gowns.
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| Sunflower, Mixed Varieties Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
Pollenless sunflowers still produce nectar so can provide some food for insects like bees and butterflies but it also requires these insects go to other sources to gather pollen.
Sunflowers come in a wide variety of types and are very adaptable to their surroundings. For example, if you choose a sunflower such as the Russian Giant variety that produces a tall plant with a large head and abundant seeds and plant according to the seed packet directions, you will likely get a tall sunflower with heavy, thick stems and a head with a large amount of seeds. This works well if the gardener wants to collect seeds for snacking and as winter food for birds.
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| Sunflower, Evening Sun Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
However, some flower growers learned that if you plant sunflowers closer together, then they still produced the expected flower color and type, just often with a smaller head and a shorter or more manageable stem length and thickness. Having these characteristics plus lack of pollen proved to be very helpful for use in bouquets and arrangements.
One other issue that was found is that with the single stem types the grower must do a continual succession planting in order to have ongoing crops for their customers throughout the growing season. Also, the seed for pollenless, single stem sunflowers can be more costly than the conventional types.
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| Sunflower, Cherry Rose Photo by Joyce D'Agostino |
Sunflowers now come in a wide variety of heights, flower head sizes and textures, single or multi stems and various colors from dramatic deep to bright and cheerful colors and as conventional types that produce pollen and nectar or the newer pollenless varieties. There seems to be a something for everyone so it’s no wonder that sunflowers have remained popular with gardeners, florists (and the bees) for years.
Here are a few bulletins from Colorado State Extension that provide additional information:
PlantTalkColorado-1004Sunflowers