Teepees and Trellises Use dried sunflower stalks to build circular pole bean teepees in the garden to support your pole beans. You can also grow living sunflower supports in a circular pattern and plant beans around them. The sturdy stems are more than able to hold these climbing vegetables as they grow and mature.

13 Petals: ragwort, corn marigold, cineraria. 21 Petals: aster, black-eyed susan, chicory.

Sunflowers grown as annuals die after producing their flower heads go to seed. They do not grow and bloom again. These are usually the varieties cultivated for their large size, showy flower heads and edible seeds.

Are sunflowers annuals or perennials? While most varieties of this bright beauty are annual sunflowers, meaning they will not come back the following growing season, they may self-germinate from dropped seeds if you leave the heads on the plants throughout the winter.

Cut off the old flower heads as soon as the petals begin to wilt in summer. Deadheading the old flowers stops seed production and encourages perennial sunflowers to send out a second set of flower buds. Continue to deadhead the sunflower plant until it stops sending up new blooms, usually in fall.

So why are there no seeds on my sunflower? The reasons could be varied, ranging from a cultivated variety not designed for pollination, lack of pollination, misinterpretation of what’s happening in the flower, something else got to them first, or possibly but rarely, pests.

To prevent reseeding, remove spent sunflower heads before they go to seed. Alternatively, leave the flowers on the plant if you’d like to collect seeds for future planting or to save as food for wildlife. Frequent deadheading results in healthy, full sunflower plants.

When it has run the course of its’ life, dried sunflower heads make tasty bird feeders in the winter. Harvest and roast the seeds and sprinkle on salads or enjoy as a healthy, tasty snack. (Seeds are generally ready to harvest when the head turns brown on the back.)

Harvest when the back of flower turns from green to yellow (if you are cutting the stem off to dry). Harvest when the back of the flower is brown (if you are letting seeds dry with the stem intact).

Once your sunflowers have died back completely and the backs of the blooms are brown, it’s time to harvest. You’ll also notice the seeds are plump and somewhat loose. Cut the stalk with sharp scissors or pruners, about one foot down from the flower head, and place in a container that can catch any loose seeds.

If not corrected, the plant will die. However, you can revive the plant by repotting it in a larger pot. Also, the pot should be larger with good drainage. When repotting, use properly draining potting soil and repot the sunflower with its root ball.

Well, primarily, the leaves will turn yellow. The leaves, apart from turning yellow, may also turn brown or black depending on the issue. If the plants are overwatered, they will begin to wilt too. Same if they are under-watered.

The leaves along the stalk may still be green; they start their end-of-season decline after the yellow petals surrounding the seed-heavy head are dead or have already dropped. Cut the stem roughly 12 inches from the head when the back of the head is a golden yellow or brown, the petals are dead and the seeds are plump.

The major diseases posing threats to ornamental sunflower are the same as those threatening oilseed sunflower hybrids, namely downy mildew, rust, Phomopsis stem canker, Sclerotinia wilt, Verticillium wilt, and charcoal rot.

So an obvious reason for drooping heads is simply top-heavy sunflowers. Another possibility for drooping sunflowers is that the plants need water. An indicator of this is leaves that are wilted as well. Sunflowers, in general, can withstand some drought.

Sunflower Problems with Disease Rust, verticillium wilt, and powdery mildew can also affect sunflower plants on occasion. However, the most common threat to these plants is Sclerotinia stem rot, also known as white mold. This fungus can cause sudden wilting of leaves, stem cankers, and root or head rot.

White mold, also known as Sclerotinia wilt, is caused by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary, and is considered to be the most destructive disease of sunflowers. It causes a wide range of diseases in sunflower including base, crown, root, stalk and stem rots, and head rots.

Ways to stop slugs eating young plants:

1. Use organic slug pellets.
2. Water in biological control.
3. Use copper barriers.
4. Let them eat bran.
5. Mulch with grit.
6. Get rid of slugs with beer traps.

Why Do Squirrels Eat Sunflower Plants? Squirrels love to climb and eat the sunflower seeds. If you look closely at a sunflower plant, you will notice that the heads are consist of sunflower seeds. A grey squirrel thrives on nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, bugs, insects.

Sunflower bugs and beetles, Cutworms, ladybugs, spiders, bees, snails, butterflies, moths, aphids, seed Weevils, squirrels, rabbits, birds, deer, mice, rats, hedgehogs, chipmunks, Raccoons and the list goes on. Many are good and beneficial, some bad. Let’s explore these further.

Squirrels like sunflowers even more than gardeners, because they’re a favorite food source for this garden pest. While squirrels are persistent creatures, you can protect your sunflowers by preventing squirrels from gaining access to them.

A Visual deterrents like flapping, reflective scarers, toy cats, hawk replicas or scarecrows may work for a while, but birds soon become accustomed to them. Our testing found kites in the shape of birds of prey worked best out of these types of deterrent.

Essential Oils, Garlic, Cayenne Pepper and Professional Products are all known to be smells that birds hate. Keeping birds away by using smell is a effective and simple way of deterring birds.

Although birds usually will not eat enough of the buds to damage the plant, there are a few simple ways to prevent birds from eating flower buds….The following blossoms provide energy for migrating cedar waxwings in the spring:

• Pear.
• Apple.
• Peach.
• Plum.
• Cherry.
• Crabapple.

There’s a good chance earwigs are eating your plants. They feed at night and hide during the day in shady, moist areas under plants, flowerpots or mulch. Since they chew holes in both leaves and petals, the plants have a ragged look. To discourage them, reduce watering and eliminate thick mulches.