Back around half way through Summer of 2019, I was thinking it might be a good thing to try growing sun flowers the next year. I always thought they were pretty neat, and thinking back, they always came across as exceptionally happy flowers. Well, on one of our Tuesday shoppings early on Summer 2020, I finally remembered to check the seeds section at Bi Mart, and picked out a couple packets to try. We went with the Skyscrapers for the back fence (in the front yard), and the shorter multi colored for around the front porch. It was a bit late in the season when we got started, but we put down our initial seeds outside (in clusters of 3 for redundancy) and placed popsicle stick markers in the ground to show where each cluster was.
Sure enough, they popped up not too long after. Granted, I don't recall how long it took, but it was not long. They were slow growing at first, and we were starting to doubt if they would bloom, thinking perhaps we did start too late in the season. But boy, were we wrong. After probably a month to a month and a half, the first Skyscraper bloomed, and a week later, one of the shorties up front did as well. It was still another week or two before we saw any more; but now I am thinking that is because of a snowball effect as the honey bees, bumble bees, and wasps started discovering the new flowers. A month later, though, we had the beginnings of a lovely wall of yellow and green (and later orange). Next year, we will get them started inside probably early or mid Spring, now that we have a better inkling of what we are doing here. I have to say, now that we have our initial experiments done, and seeing just how that little half assed attempt worked this year, I am looking forward to a much more organized and planned out growing next year.
There will be skyscrapers along the fence between the front and back yard, of course, as well as continuing along the fence between us and the neighbor (they may do sunflowers next year as well). The rose bush stays put, but the front and other end of the porch will have a wall of green, yellow, and orange; and by mid to late Summer, they should provide much needed shade for our regular porch sittings. The tall part of the west fence will also have a couple rows, as will the west facing wall, at least up to the kitchen windows. Don't want to block the windows and piss off the plants that thrive on the light coming into the kitchen from the outside.
I am also planning on trying my hand at breeding sunflowers. I am seeing at least 5, perhaps 6 varierties growing here, and surely it should be possible to mix and match. Guess I should finally get me a proper lab coat and mad scientist goggles soon. |
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