Gardening: sunflower season review, 2024

Self-tutoring about gardening: the tutor mentions the results of this year’s sunflower effort.

Starting back in May, I planted around 40 sunflower seeds. This included a re-planting, perhaps in early June, because many didn’t come up, or else died soon after they sprouted. The re-planting, however, seemed to be successful.

Eighteen sunflowers did survive; all that managed to grow a foot or more bloomed. However, their blooms came later than I expected: I don’t think any bloomed before the second half of August. Some only bloomed within the past week. Therefore, the time of bloom spread over almost two months, even though they’d been planted within a two-week interval.

A few plants that were near bloom got damaged in that their stocks got broken near the bottom. (I don’t know what caused this; one morning they were lying down.) However, I cut off each stalk where it was broken, stuck it upright into the soil deep in enough so it would stand erect, and watered it daily. This worked: all the broken stalks managed to flower with this treatment. Looking at them, one couldn’t tell the difference between them and the non-broken plants. They have remained upright, living and blooming, for weeks.

One place I planted some sunflower seeds had no success, or so it seemed. However, in late September I finally noticed a stalk there that was indeed a sunflower plant. It’s only managed to grow a foot tall, but bloomed this past week. I guess it got a late start, but still succeeded.