SAN ANTONIO – Who doesn’t want to look out and see sunflowers blooming in their gardens?
Since we are in peak planting season for spring, you can plant something that will bring joy and is also super inexpensive and a beginner flower to plant.
Sunflowers can act as the security guards to a garden, distracting some pests away from other plants. For example, plant them as a border around your tomato plants and the sunflowers will distract pesky leaf footed pests away from tomatoes.
Sunflowers are also good for wildlife, providing food, pollen and nectar to hummingbirds, birds, bees and butterflies.
KSAT 12 interviewed Lucy Medrano, 85, at a local memory care facility last year about how gardening can help fight dementia and she inspired KSAT to plant sunflowers. Lucy had grown beautiful sunflowers in the facility’s garden and explained the joy and peace they brought her and other residents.
“Look at those millions of seeds,” Lucy said. “A plant that tall grows from that tiny seed. It takes you away to...I don’t know. Maybe that’s the way it is in paradise, among the flowers, among the birds, nature.”
KSAT 12 purchased a couple of varieties from Rainbow Gardens. KSAT then planted border sunflowers which can get 5 to 6 feet tall and giant sunflowers that can grow 12-14 feet tall. If your fence line gets full sun, sunflowers make a great border flower and can beautify a fence line.
Sunflowers need full sun, so check where in your yard gets 8 hours of sunlight before planting.
You’ll want to till up your soil if these are going into new beds. It’s important to add an organic compost, like Landscapers Pride Mushroom compost. KSAT also added an organic seed starter, FoxFarm Lucky Dog Growers Blend, to help enhance root efficiency, since this is a new bed in an area that hasn’t grown much despite being in full sun.
Plant 4-6 inches apart and plant half inch deep for smaller varieties and an inch deep for the giant sunflowers sow one inch deep. Some small wildflower seeds you can just throw onto flower beds because of their size. However sunflowers you can’t just scatter on dirt because they are bigger and need to be buried to germinate or the birds will get to them first.
Make sure to keep the soil moist as those seedlings get started. If it doesn’t rain, KSAT is doing deep waterings every two days and checking the moisture of the flower bed. Exactly seven days after sowing the border of sunflowers, KSAT saw little sprouts. They will be in full bloom and reach height hopefully around May.