Sunflower journal :)

Last year while going for some variety on muffin baking, I've bought sunflower and pumpkin seeds from Tesco for the add-on. Seeing them are raw, I've planted them to see if they'll grow, and they did! Regardless of what kind of sunflower variety it was, I was very looking forward to see them bloom :) 

Here's them in 3 weeks after germination, I've put them on wet wool, they had no shell, so the water absorption was very good and they germinated overnight, just like growing tauge :p  They’re out of my expectation though, because I never thought almost all of them will get germinated. So there was so many seedling and I had no idea which one should be kept, so eventually I kept most of them, I have like 6 sunflowers survived =D

3rd week seedling

Another picture showing them at 20 days (~3 weeks). They’ve grown up to a foot now. I had moved them to bigger pot, still they sharing the same pot though. Looking up internet suggested the sunflower to be planted on ground where they should be separated far enough so they get less compete between each other can grow healthy. Well my house didn’t have the space >_<

20 days old sunflowers

At the 4^th week, their leaves already pushing each other apart. I had some other sunflowers growing individually in other small pot though. But this pot will be sharing until they bloom. It was raining season and they always get bend by the raindrops. 3-4 weeks old and very vulnerable to the lethal raindrops. I used wooden stick to support them. At close inspection, I saw one injured spider dwelling in a leave from one of the sunflower. It pulled in the leaves and stick it together to form curved, protected and safe home. I didn’t hush it away though J glad to keep it as guardian for little pest that troubling my sunflower. One of the pest was leaf hopper, green one and red one. They suck the sap out of the plant and drip it out from their bud as protection fee for the ants. Stupid combination :’(

4th week

Dwelling spider

At the 5^th week, as you can see, they were growing taller and more leaves. They start not getting enough sunlight, so I put them on top of my concrete fence so they can …reach for the sun!!! They were very sunlight craving buddies. In morning they always facing to the sun and when evening when I check on them once more, they were facing sun, at the west side. I wonder what happen during night, they must had been move their head to the east by themselves. Flower buds already appear on this week.

5th week

Flower bud appeared

 

On sixth week, no more leaves growing from the top because the flower bud already appear, one for each plant, so the leaves just growing in size. And the flower head just growing in size too, developing the structure inside.

6th week

On seventh week, the flower head started to grow away from the nearest leaf, growing like a giraffe neck. The leaves were strategically arranged. If the sunlight came from top, by speculates the leaves arrangement from the top, you can see that all leaves will expose to the sunlight.

7th week

On eighth week, very obvious the flower head had grown that big and tall. Well it just one meter tall though. I wished I can grow a tall variety like sunflower mammoth that shown on internet, reaching 4-6 meters and that, but really I did have the seeds, and the mammoth was dead hitting by strong raindrops :’( also I didn’t have the land to plant it :) See the close up picture of the flower head a few days after eighth week :p In the picture was the one growing individually in smaller pot instead of sharing.

8th week

On ninth week, which was Chinese New Year 1^st day, the flower head petal had started to open. I guess this variety doesn’t open all in one shot though. The florets on the flower head started to bloom though, from outer ring to inner, day by day. The rest of the petals open up on consecutive days, all through the first 3 days of Chinese New Year. I’ve noticed that when the flower head was going to bloom, it will stop following the sun =D so if a sunflower head no longer follow sun by that day, the next day the petal should start open hmmm hmmm

CNY 1st day

CNY 2nd day

CNY 3rd day

At full opening, the petals formed a diameter of 6.5” across. Luckily the stem of the plant wasn’t heavy and the plant wasn’t grew too tall, so the small pot with the weight of its soil was enough to hold stable everything. I was expecting butterfly or bees to come over to harvest the nectar and help pollinate but at least in day time I’ve seen none of them came over, so I used a Q-tip and collect and rolled the pollen over the stigma of the florets hahahahaha

Blooms

Not-so-tall

On 10^th week, with the disaster rain and all that, the sunflower head bend over. Maybe is because the head had grown heavier too due to the seeds forming inside. One benefit when growing seeds with drooping head is that the birds will have no place to stand and dining in our seeds, so it actually is a protection mechanism probably developed (maybe human selection) by the plant itself.

Drooping heads :(

Look sad :(

The petals dried and withered off one by one on the floor in a week after bloom. I noticed that the life of the bloom ended when the florets bloomed to the center of the flower head. So we can actually know the lifespan of the bloom by looking at the florets progress in the center.

Florets open from the outer ring

Approximately a month after withering, the leaves dried up from bottom to top, and the stem followed until the seed head. I harvested the seeds and noticed the unfertilized seed, just with empty shells. So many seeds for the next generation, but too bad I had no place to plant it. By turn over the pot, I saw the root had gone into every corner of the soil in the pot, even came out at the bottom. So happy and had a very good experience planting sunflower.

 

Dried seed head

Empty shells

So I did bought many more seeds. See down there I had succeed growing sunflower sunspot, with a very big bloom!!! The seeds were all empty though it looks round (no picture). Also I had grown two sunflower taiyo, I wanted it to be at least 3 meters tall though, I get less than a meter tall plant, with 8” petals diameter bloom L still happy though hehe

Sunflower sunspot

Sunflower taiyo

That’s all for the sunflower journal =P green and nature are the best part of life.