FLIMBY: Sunflowers capture Sacramento’s summer attitude

This is another installment in our Flowers in My Back Yard series, dedicated to blooming plants.

Sunflowers are sprouting throughout my almost-summer garden. Thank the birds.

This fast-growing annual is a favorite of feathered friends (and they tend to spread the seeds around). Sunflowers can help fight pests, too.

Sacramento enjoys (at least) two crops of sunflowers. Seeds planted in late winter or early spring (or leftover by the birds) produce June blooms and July seeds. Another round can be planted in late summer or early fall to produce blooms for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Quick-maturing varieties can be planted as late as October in Sacramento to produce blooms by New Year’s Day. (Their only limitation: They can’t take hard frost.)

And they also can be planted any time in between (such as right now), as long as they receive sufficient irrigation. Sunflowers are one bloom that truly thrives in our heat.

We Sacramentans love sunflowers, probably because sunflowers love Sacramento and the Central Valley. Yolo County produces much of the nation’s hybrid sunflower seed – not to eat, but to grow (often just for their flowers).

In fact, sunflowers have become one of the top three commercial florist flowers worldwide. Because they’re annuals, they grow quickly; that means their cost per stem is generally lower than roses, carnations, mums or other staples (that are produced by shrubs or perennials). Customers love sunflowers for their cheerful look, long vase life and big impact in a vase.

The most popular florist sunflowers include ProCut series (ProCut Orange, ProCut White, etc.) and the Vincent’s Series (Vincent’s Choice, Vincent’s Fresh, etc.). They produce uniform, upward-facing blooms with strong stems.

Most florist sunflowers have no pollen. That’s good for the florists (less mess), but bad for bees and other beneficial insects that depend on pollen as well as birds. (No pollen means no seeds.)

To support wildlife, choose sunflower varieties with pollen and seeds, preferably with multi-stems (and multiple flowerheads) and oil-rich seeds.

Black Oil or Common Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is a favorite of small birds; it has thin shells that are easy to break. Black Russian and Mammoth Russian produce loads of oil-rich seeds for bigger birds (and people, too).

A favorite of bees, Autumn Beauty is a late-season sunflower that goes far beyond basic gold. Growing 4 to 6 feet tall, this branching variety matures in 70 to 80 days with flowers in six to seven weeks. An excellent cut flower with strong stems, the large zinnia-like blooms are often bicolor in shades of bright yellow, dark gold, orange, rich bronze and even purple. The flowers are rich in nectar, feeding pollinators.

When planted in summer, sunflower seeds sprout rapidly in warm soil. Plant seed about 1 inch deep and keep evenly moist; the better the soil, the faster they’ll grow. Irrigate sunflowers as you would tomatoes or other summer crops (about 5 gallons of water per plant per week).

Several varieties (particularly the Russian strains) grow very tall, often topping 10 feet. These plants become garden sentinels, attracting a few pests as well as wildlife. That’s another asset.

Some pests (such as marmorated stink bugs) like to lay their eggs on the underside of sunflowers’ big leaves. That trait actually makes them easier to find and control. Periodically, check the underside of leaves. If you see bad bug eggs, cut off the leaf (eggs and all) and destroy it. Bugs be gone.

(Birds also are aware of these bug nurseries. That’s why you’ll often see small finches or other birds pecking around the sunflower leaves, sometimes leaving small tears or holes in the foliage.)

Most sunflowers mature in under 100 days; that’s not the time to produce flowers, but to form dried seed. A seed-packed sunflower head is ready to cut when the back of the flower head turns yellow to brown, the petals shrivel and the head droops forward, due to the heavy seeds.

You also can tell they’re ready to pick by the increased bird activity around your sunflowers. To keep the seeds for yourself to eat (or to plant next year), place a large paper grocery bag over the ripe head and secure with string around the stem. Then, cut the stem and let the flower head dry inside the bag in a cool dark place. The seeds will drop into the bottom of the bag for easy collection.

As a cut flower, sunflowers offer a quick return on any time or effort. Sunflower blooms often appear in 50 to 60 days and branching varieties keep producing more flowers for at least another month, depending on the variety. Planted now, your sunflowers will provide bouquets in time for August.

And with the birds’ help, they’ll be back next summer, too.