Sunflowers are one of our favorite flowers. Their sunny faces are well-beloved by pretty much everybody -with even artists like Monet and Van Gogh immortalizing them in their art - and are one of the easiest, most reliable flowers to grow. A staple of flower farmers ad gardeners everywhere, they are a great flower to have in the garden and in the vase.

Sunflowers are pretty awesome in that they are really easy to grow from seed, bloom fairly quickly (55 days in most cases) and make for an excellent cut flower. Sunflowers grow well anywhere they can get some good heat and sun - with most of the central and southern U.S. being excellent areas to grow sunflowers.

1. Selecting Your Variety

Sunflowers come in a variety of forms and colors and styles - all of which are wonderful for enjoying in the garden and landscape and as a cut flower.

The wild sunflower Helianthus annuus is present all over North America with branching stems that end in numerous small one inch open faced sunflowers (similar to a black oilseed sunflower). It pops upon our property with fair regularity, and is a welcome sight when it reseeds randomly into our prairie planting - I particularly like it during the winter when its seedheads and strong structure bear through even the most harsh of winter conditions (and attracting plenty of birds that come to feed on the seeds as well).

If you’re looking for a good sunflower that works as a cut flower, you’ll want to grow what are known as single stem sunflowers. These are sunflowers that produce one very large and perfect flower on a single stem instead of branching. Of course this means that once you cut that flower, it is done and won’t give you additional blooms, but that one stem is oh-so-perfect and glorious and will grab the attention of your customers, both retail and designer.

Generally speaking, most flower farmers grow the Procut series for the single stem sunflowers, with other varieties like the Vincents also being popular as well. I personally love the Procut series because of all the different colors and varieties - there is something for everybody. Whether you’re into the classic golden petaled black centered ‘Procut Orange’ or the burgundy/pink/primrose yellow ‘Procut Plum’ or the dark wine-red petals of ‘Procut Plum’ or the creamy white petals of ‘Procut White Lite’, there’s a color for everyone!

‘Procut White Lite’ with golden faced centers and ivory petals is a hit with pretty much everyone

There are some branching sunflowers that work well as cut flowers too. We are particularly big fans of ‘Strawberry Blonde/Ruby Eclipse’ with its pale primrose-yellow tips and a barely-touched light rosy tint in the center of the flower - both because of its coloration as well as its form that produces plenty of smaller side stems to cut from. ‘Moulin Rouge’ is a lovely and deep burgundy colored sunflower with multiple flowers for you to cut from. And ‘Autumn Beauty’ is a mix of red, orange, yellow and bicolored sunflowers that is our favorite sunflower to grow due to the variety of colors and shades, filing many a market bouquet and arrangement.

2. Starting Sunflowers from Seed

The good news about starting sunflowers from seed is very, very easy.

The seeds are large and easy to handle with your fingers, so it’s easy to poke them into cell trays, soil blocks or directly into the ground (unlike flowers like poppies and snapdragons who have very fine seed). And even better, the seeds will germinate very quickly and readily, popping up in just a few short days so long as the soil temperature is warm.

In fact, they’re one of the easiest flowers (or plants) to start from seed - so easy that they’re a great seed for kids to start (starting sunflowers can be a great project for them).

We generally start sunflowers directly in the soil - they pop up very quickly, and it saves us the issue of having to transplant them. Especially if you’re starting a large amount of sunflowers, you may want to think about using a seeder to keep your sunflowers evenly spaced (if you don’t just try and eye it as closely as you can).

If you do want to start them in cell trays or soil blocks before planting them out, just make sure that you plant the seeds down into the potting mix so that they don’t pop up and out of the soil. They grow quickly - popping up out of the soil and quickly transforming into robust little plants. We do one seed per cell to prevent the need for thinning.

To plant sunflowers, we recommend 6” spacing between single stem sunflowers and 24” spacing between branching sunflowers. Plant the seed about 1/2” under the soil, and then water them in. If you’re still having cooler nights, you can speed up the germination process by covering them with frost cloth.

3. Sunflower Care

Sunflowers don’t require a lot of trouble to grow well, just mostly sun and heat and regular watering. They are the most vulnerable at the seedling stage when they are still young and tender - snails, slugs, mice, even birds love to eat them, so make sure that you keep them safe. We use frost cloth (also known as row cover or Agribon - a commercial name) to keep them safe until they get big enough to be out on their own.

Sunflowers will start to form a very thick and tough stem, covered with translucent prickly hairs. These aren’t painful for us - but they do protect them against insect predation. They will grow very quickly during the heat of summer and with most single stem sunflowers you can expect blooms almost right on the estimated days to maturity (usually around 55 days depending on the variety).

The main issue that we’ve had with sunflowers while they’re growing is the sunflower weevil. Sunflower weevils are little small beetlees with a long and narrow snout that bury into sunflower plants - and you’ll notice it when you all of a sudden one day find that your sunflower heads look as if they’ve been broken off - maybe by a person or a heavy wind - and just dangling, hanging from the plant.

This can be upsetting, and unfortunately there’s not a lot you can do when it happens aside from discarding the broken sunflower heads in the trash - the sunflower heads contain the eggs of the weevil, so you don’t want to compost them because you’ll just increase the population in your area.

4. Harvesting Sunflowers

Sunflowers are ready to harvest when they are just starting to lift the first petal from their face- you should be able to see just a hint of the color of the petals. You also want to harvest sunflowers really before they are open - if you let the sunflower open, it will be very prone to bug damage as well as shortening its life in the vase.

However, if you can harvest the sunflower when its just starting to open and allow it to open fully inside the house, it will last for a while - at least one week, sometimes up to two weeks in fresh water that is changed every couple of days.

Harvest sunflowers either early in the morning or late in the evening in the cool temperatures. Get sunflowers into a cool bucket of water as soon as you harvest them so that their petals don’t get droopy, and then let them rest in the water for a while before using them. Make sure that you also clean off the bottom leaves so that they don’t dirty the water. Clean water = long vase life for flowers!

5. Designing with Sunflowers

Single stem sunflowers are wonderful because they have been bred for use as cut flowers - and don’t actually produce any pollen. Sunflower pollen is sticky and will stain tablecloths and napkins and clothing, so pollen-less sunflowers are important if you are going to be using them in a tablescape or where people will be in close contact with them.

We generally will use single stem sunflowers as a focal flower in an arrangement, drawing your attention front and center to it. If we’re doing a larger arrangement, we’ll usually use several sunflowers as a cluster of flowers.

Single stem sunflowers also are great for selling at the farmer’s market or for retail, with our five-stem bunches being the most popular purchase. Simply harvest, strip the leaves, and rubber-band them together for an easy no-frills bunch of flowers to be enjoyed by your customers.

You can still use sunflowers that produce pollen (most of the branching varieties still produce some pollen) because they are absolutely beautiful, and their natural branching form allows them to be used as more than just the “lollipop” shape that many single stem sunflowers get used as. We usually harvest them when the first and tallest flower bud just starts to open - the other buds will continue to grow and develop after they are cut.

Even after sunflowers have finished blooming, we love using their dark-faced centers as a structural element in our designs. If your sunflower is shedding petals, simply pluck them off and use the denuded center in your arrangement.

I Hope I’ve Inspired You to Grow Some Sunflowers

They’re easy to grow, love the heat, and are so cheerful and colorful and long-lived. What’s not to love? And even better, after they are done you can plant something else in their spot (although we love planting more sunflowers too!)

If you’re interested in growing other cut flowers that love the hot weather of summer, check out these other growing guides:

And if you’re interested in growing cut flowers as a business - whether that’s selling at a roadside stand, a CSA, at a farmer’s market, to florists or for your own design work, check out our eBook bundle for flower farmers!

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How to Grow Sunflowers for the Cutting Garden