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Talkback: How to grow sunflowers from seed
MargieKerr
Posts: 1
in Talkback
I have sown some dwarf sunflower seeds in seed trays - never grown these before so complete novice! they are coming through now and about an inch high - I can only grow them on in containers but no idea how many seedlings to one container - any advice greatly appreciated! Many thanks.
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We where proud of them and the morning after planting we went to say them goodbey.....it was a googdbey indead!!!...: all 12 had been eaten by snails. They where about 10 cm high, so the snails had a good meal, there was really nothing left to see, just the soil.
Now i have grown 16 plants [ 4 different ones] and i will sure use escar-go. [ it is bio, not dangerous for other animals.]
In our village they have a competition for kids to see who can grow the largest sunflower head (not the tallest). A few years ago our daughter planted her sunflower on top of a hole filled with the previous year's manure where I had grown courgettes.
The plant didn't grow particularly tall - about 7 feet - but the flower head was HUGE, 21 inches across excluding petals.
Slight problem - I may have planted my russian sunflowers a bit early (February) and they are all (22 of them) 30-50cm tall and growing 2-3.5 cm every day! I don't have space to keep 22 sunflowers indoors for another 2 months - I reckon they may be 2m+ by then! When is the earliest I can plant them out?
Could you start hardening them off outside for a while each day. (I know it's a pain bringing them in and out.) I'd pot them into bigger pots so that they are more sturdy and bring them back in if cold weather is forecast, and then out again when it's mild. And you could sow some more now, for insurance. Is there some way you can stack them?