sunflower competition, anyone? plus a helpful chart

The tallest sunflower was 8.03 m (26 ft 4 in) tall when measured in Kaarst-Voorst, Germany, on 17 August 2009 and belongs to Hans-Peter Schiffer (Germany).

dam I would turn the flower head into a chair lol

dude...i want a 20ft+ sunflower, that would be so awesome. all mine are small just taking to soil outdoors.planning on planting a lot more tho

that is bad ass!!! how cold was it when you planted?

Originally Posted by Mohican

OK - I am in. I have an advantage - she is 3 months old! She is next to a six foot wall to give you some perspective. The stem (trunk) is as big around as a coke can:



















Cheers,
Mo

mine are getting there.

that is bad ass!!! how cold was it when you planted?

She was not really planted. She is offspring from a sunflower grow three years ago. I did some tilling for some other plants and a couple days later she popped up. We had a very warm winter here this year.


I had another one pop up at Christmas - the weather was in the 80's! I will try and find a pic.


Cheers,
Mo

Found one! The date on this pic was around end of March:








It is about 5 feet over from where the big girl is now. I made some tea from Kellogs Veggie Organic fert. It said to mix the solids in as a topfeed. Looked and smelled like baby shit. I dumped it on the sunflower when she was a couple feet tall. I don't know if that is why she is so big or if it is just DNA. The garden we had out there three years ago had several different varieties.





Cheers,
Mo

i have to confess to being somewhat of a plant snob. i love sunflowers in the late season. but there's something weedy in it's genes. all those leaves and a small flower in comparison. i've only enloyed them in other ppls gardens. never grown em. i love the seed head. it's a feast for the critters when it goes to seed. but it's a hard plant to mix with other plants in a garden design. it seems to want all the attention. i'm happy some ppl love them cuz if it were up to me the plant would never get planted. props for all the beautiful pix....of those sun weeds.

Something ate the tops off every last one of my sunflowers. I had probably close to a hundred of them almost knee high and out of nowhere they are half the size. I'm thinking deer because they were almost too tall for a rabbit to get the tops. I'm not very happy about it.