sunflowers

Are there any good varieties of dwarf sunflowers to be grown from seed?  I planted some of the tall ones but they are too tall.  Some fell down in the wind and snapped, some were attacked by squirrels or slugs (flower head eaten off), onlly a few survived.

Anone any experience with smaller bushier varities?

Some shorter varieties of sunflower (up to, say, four or five feet) will produce multiple flowers, but the flowers are fairly small, nothing like the giants, so you may not like them. They do produce stems from several of the leaf intersections, but you couldn't really describe them as bushy.

There are a couple of very small varieties which are only 18" tall which are nice pot plants - would they suit?

I grow Russian Giants - this year they're not as tall and robust as usual, but they have all reached between 5 and 7 ft tall - however the flowers are not as large as usual either - I'm putting this down to the lack of sunshine earlier in the season.  I always support and tie up my sunflowers, they grow so tall that they can only self-support if grown in blocks as in the farmers' fields.   This year mine are up against a robust trellis fence, and they were tied in every 12 inches until they got to the topof the fence which is about 5'6" high.

Hi Phil, I have grown one called Key Lime Pie which are supposed to grow to 4 ft high.  They are a really nice pale yellow too.  The seed was from Thompson and Morgan but I did buy it in 2010.  They still germinated well though.  

High ther Dovie girl, I have grown Russian Giant too and had the same probs, tall but small heads, must be the weather.

Hi Flowerpotty, nice to know we have tiny  Russian Giants in common 

Thanks for your comments.  I'll try one of the seed catalogues such as Thmpson and Morgan.

I grew a variety of sunflowers this year -  Irish eyes, ruby sunset, teddy bear, giant yellow, russian giant and a couple more whose packets have since been thrown away. Height ranging from 1ft to 8ftplus,. They were all a tab bit disappointing considering previous years I've grown giant yellow to 10ft plus.

Teddy bear showed flowers first and are still flowering,Irish eyes and ruby sunset, are flowering,none of the huge one's have grown above the height of the shed though. I'd be inclinded to try again next year due to the weather this, I was so disappointed with the 6ft plus one's. The multi headed one's, providing you dead head them keep producing flowers but the flowers are dead small.       

hi all

found all your comments quite interesting,as this is the first year i've grown sunflowers,having picked up a packet of the Teddy Bear  variety to get grand kids involved, my interest picked up where theirs waned,i put half-a-dozen against a fencing panel,and planted sweet pea,s inbetween and around them,i added a 8ft beanpole to the tallest when it got above the panel andit seems like almost a daily task undoing the ties and moving the pole up,,yesterday,whilst balanced on tiptoeee with one foot on the hen house and the other on the paneli had to measure it 14ft 2" i think thankfully its starting to bend its head,if only it could have a week of sunshine,just added pole to another(10ft) s'peas are looking great twisting round them using them as supports which is good job as they are 8-9ft