Sunflowers

[SPedigrees]

I guess I've answered a question I was going to ask here, as to why my dwarf sunflower heads are closed, rather than opening to expose ripening seeds. A little digging into old receipts tells me that these sunflowers are hybrids. Normally I buy only open-pollinated seeds, but apparently didn't in this case. I was going to save seeds from these porch plants, but I guess my options for next year are buy more seeds to raise these again, or raise orange cosmos instead.

 

[SPedigrees]

For some reason I wasn't able to add to the partial post above, so I'll add it here:
Another picture of these hybrid dwarf sunflowers, mostly gone by at this point:

Then there are the large sunflowers I've been growing in this raised metal bed on the hill behind my house:

This is from a couple years ago:

As much as I'll miss the sunflowers, I'm thinking of planting something else in this planter, something that will require less care, perhaps only watering during dry stretches. To grow tall sunflowers, I have to stretch netting around these tall posts to prevent deer from making a snack of the plants.

I've thought of planting chervil, because volunteer chervil plants thrive so well on my land. This clump of chervil (pictured below) in my back yard looks for all the world like a deliberately planted flowering bush, but it was spared, not planted. Apparently chervil is not a perennial, but it re-seeds itself readily. Wish I'd saved seeds from this plant earlier this year, but didn't think of it then. So maybe I'll buy seeds.

I've taken sprigs off it to use as a substitute for parsley, but since learning about chervil's evil twin, poison hemlock, I think I won't be doing this again, to avoid making a deadly mistake.

 

[R2elk]

I guess I've answered a question I was going to ask here, as to why my dwarf sunflower heads are closed, rather than opening to expose ripening seeds. A little digging into old receipts tells me that these sunflowers are hybrids. Normally I buy only open-pollinated seeds, but apparently didn't in this case. I was going to save seeds from these porch plants, but I guess my options for next year are buy more seeds to raise these again, or raise orange cosmos instead.

Another option is to raise normal sunflowers in poor soil with minimal water. These are Mammoth Gray Stripe sunflowers that can get 8' to 12' tall. My biggest was about 6' tall and the smallest was about 10" tall.

 

[SPedigrees]

Another option is to raise normal sunflowers in poor soil with minimal water. These are Mammoth Gray Stripe sunflowers that can get 8' to 12' tall. My biggest was about 6' tall and the smallest was about 10" tall.
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My tall sunflowers were all open-pollinated heirloom varieties, Arikara variety. I've saved seeds from them successfully each year. But they get eaten by deer if I don't encase them in a cage of tall deer netting. I've tried planting them in the ground, but without protection they are eaten by birds before they can even become deer snacks. Your sunflowers look happy!

It's the dwarf sunflowers on my porch that are hybrids. I do like the halos around the flowers, but whether I grow them again next year is up in the air.