Learning to grow sunflowers from seed

My gardening expectations are often crushed by reality

Illustration by Author

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My first sunflowers were volunteers. They sprung up under the bird feeders and I mowed around them all spring and summer until they bloomed in late fall. Since they were spawned from a bag of birdseed, they were pretty random — a mix of different sunflower varieties, with some barely 18 inches high and others brushing against the bottom of the tray feeder.

Most of them were small, by sunflower standards. The goldfinches liked the big ones best, perching on their wide faces and picking out the seeds one by one.

I was delighted with my first crop of unplanned sunflowers, but I really wanted the Mammoth ones that grow 9–10 feet tall, the ones with blooms as large as dinner plates.

Over the years, a few of these giants have appeared magically in the scruffy flower garden against my house. It feels like a gift when a towering sunflower spontaneously takes center stage among the dianthus and coneflower.

It didn’t occur to me to intentionally plant them until last year, when my friend Annie posted her crop of Mammoths to Facebook.

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Annie’s been planting sunflowers in her yard for the last few years. She brings the flowers, laden with seed, to farmer’s markets where she teaches the public about raptors and gives the flowers away to wide-eyed children.

Annie is a bird rehabber. Occasionally, her rescues can’t be released, so she uses them as education birds — hawks and merlins and owls — teaching people what to do when they find an injured bird. She makes people aware of these glorious birds and the trouble they’re in from cars and loss of habitat and pesticides.

I love Annie’s birds, but her sunflowers truly took my breath away. The minute I saw them, I had sunflower envy. I was determined to grow them myself.

That thing is…gardening doesn’t come naturally to me. I grew up in a suburb on Long Island where lawns were meticulously mowed, bushes were sculpted into submission with hedge trimmers, and leaves were bagged and put out on the curb.

I live about 130 miles north (and slightly west) of the street where I grew up, but the landscape couldn’t be more different. Ulster County, NY is a place that can only be described as wild — at least by someone whose childhood was filled with strip malls and postage stamp lawns. This might be why it took me so long to discover gardening or it might be that I’m just not very good at it.

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Last year, my husband got 3 or 4 packages of Mammoths. We planted them along our old chain link fence on a side of the house facing the street. It’s one of the most neglected parts of our yard. In retrospect, it wasn’t the best idea. We had a dry summer. The hose didn’t reach that far without a lot of dragging (and cursing).

The seeds dried out and not even a single seedling poked its green head from the soil. I had envisioned a wall of sunflowers along the fence, hiding our messy lawn, and dazzling the neighbors as they walked their dogs. But my expectations were crushed by reality. This is largely representative of my gardening experience as a whole.

This year I’m determined to have my sunflowers. I bought a few more packets of Mammoths and some Autumn Beauties which are smaller, but come in gorgeous shades of rust, orange, and red. Multiple blooms grow from a single stalk.

My fantasy about this year’s crop involves a large patch of dreamy sunflowers, all different shapes and colors, that make the neighbors gasp in wonder as they walk past the house. They’re going to look awesome when I post them to Instagram!

We didn’t plant them against the gate this time. It was too risky after last year’s failed experiment. We put them on the lawn near the tomatoes, cucumbers, and kale. My husband created a bed about ten feet long and two feet wide. I spent an hour or so one spring afternoon dropping seeds in not-so-neat rows spaced about six inches apart. It was a very “one with the earth” moment for me.

I dumped piles of seeds into the channels I’d made, figuring that would be the best way to get at least a few surviving flowers.

Turns out, that was a mistake. We’re having a much rainier spring than we did last year and the sunflowers are getting ample water (both from the rain and because they’re right next to the vegetable garden).

As of now, it looks as though every single seed I planted has sprouted into a seedling. They’re all about 5 inches tall, jostling each other for room in their rectangle of dirt.

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The current state of my sunflowers — Photo by author

“Do you need weed killer?” my friend Chris asked when I excitedly showed him a photo of my seedlings. Chris lives in a suburb rich with perfect lawns and neat gardens.

I didn’t mind the scruffiness of my lawn until Chris pointed out the weeds. Now I’m worried that the sunflowers won’t grow to realize their glorious potential if I don’t do something about those weeds. I guess I have some work to do.

It takes time to understand how to grow things when you’ve spent your life buying cut flowers from florists without giving a thought to what it took to to make that bouquet happen in the first place. I’ve been learning to go with the flow over the last few years, enjoying the process more than the outcome.

The sunflowers feel like a new adventure. I’ve never started anything from seed, preferring to buy seedlings in full bloom from one of the many local nurseries in my region (or Lowe’s). I’ve enjoyed the instant gratification of planting them and having fully blooming flowers in the garden.

It felt like I’d done the work. But, of course, someone else did the seeding and watering and debugging before my beautiful flowers arrived at the store.

Attempting to grow sunflowers from seed has given me an entirely new perspective about flowers, gardeners, and yards. It kind of feels like magic taking something so small, sticking it into the ground, and watching a ten-foot-tall flower emerge over the course of three months. Well, if all goes as planned.

I won’t know the ending of my sunflower seeding journey for a least another month or two. They start blooming from mid-July into August in New York. That gives me time to do some weeding and maybe thin out the herd of seedlings that are all vying for space.

But who am I kidding? They’re all my babies. I want every single one of them to survive. My expectations rarely match reality when it comes to growing things in my yard. Gardening hasn’t yet given me a green thumb, but I’d like to think it’s teaching me how to set realistic expectations (and maybe a little patience too).