Sunflowers

I am planting about 5 different varieties of sunflowers; mostly the dwarf ones and into containers. I ordered seed from Stokes, Territorial and Burpee. I will try Tangina, Double Dandy, Pacino Gold, and Lemon Aura. I would love to see your pictures of all kinds of sunflowers and how you use them. What are you planting? I love the idea of sunflowers with morning glories climbing up the stalk.

Lenjo, do you have any blooming yet? I'd love to see pics of all of them in bloom. I have a "bedful" and a few are just starting to bloom. I just rented the movie "Calender Girls" and now every time I look at my sunflowers I remember the words of one of the characters when he was talking about women being like sunflowers. Cute movie.

Claire

Nothing blooming for quite a while here, Claire, we have just finally gotten warm weather and so I expect things to really begin to grow. I planted quite a few containers of the miniature or shorter versions.

bought several type seeds but didn't plant a one. I got to busy and decided since I had a couple hundred vols I would just use those. Three or four are blooming at this time. Maybe next year I can do better. watching the vols come up I am tempted to just plant them in the ground march 1st and forget the gh start. Ernie

Okay, Ernie, here's a couple of naive newbie gardener questions for you: what's a "vol"? And "gh start"?

Claire

sorry botched the spelling of volenteer so instead of showing my inept spelling to the whole world I shortened it thinking no one would trip. Gh is a pretty common abbreviation for green house and the start was my way of reference to a plant started in the gh to be transplanted. Sorry to have confused you.

Today is a great day I played hooky from work to work in my yarden [ yard and garden] and I just came in for coffee so I am playing hooky from that. This hooky stuff could be habit forming lol [ laugh out loud ] I don't know 2 percend of the abbreviations used in this computer language but some where there is a list posted that is kinda helpful I found it once but don't remember where but there are some whiz bang computer people lurking around daves I bet if you asked on the computer forum one would give you the path in a heart beat. have a great day .Ernie back to the yarden

edited because I spelled of og see Ernie the dummy can't type or spell .later

This message was edited Jun 18, 2004 9:34 AM

This message was edited Jun 18, 2004 9:36 AM

Ah, now I get it! Thanks for the explanation, Ernie! I can usually spell and type but my brain is horrible at figuring out or even remembering abbreviations!! I had to ask a friend what SASE stood for even though I knew what it meant.

Yeah, if you have a bunch of volunteers I'd forget about the GH (checking to see if that's correct for "green house" LOL). I'm growing hollyhocks for the first time this year, and I started mine indoors months ago. After I planted them outside in April or May I noticed that all the people in my area who grow hollyhocks had volunteers that were already putting up stalks (?scapes?) Now theirs are all blooming and mine are not even close! So, next year I'm not bothering to start them indoors, I'll just chuck a packet of seeds outside in early spring and see what happens.

Now that I think about it though, maybe hollyhocks are different. Do they completely die back in the fall, or do they come back in the spring? Maybe all those volunteers aren't really volunteers?

Claire here holly hocks die back in the winter and mine took two years to bloom to any degree. I kinda think they are binneal. I am just back in to escape the heat it is a punishing 88 and thats way to hot for me good excuse for a nap hey a day off work should be enjoyed right. Ernie

Lenjo so do you think one could just fall plant sun flowers here and there and let them come up like volunteers. The down side is I am not sure what my flowers are this year because lots of what I planted was hybrid.

How are your D's doing mine are 2 inches high to some blooming. Ernie

I don't know about planting sunflowers in the fall, I think I wouldn't even though as you say there is usually plenty of volunteer. They are a warm season plant.

Your dahlias sound like mine. Buds forming to barely coming up; I have never seen such drastic inconsistency as this year.