Tallest sunflower competition

The Chili Monster · Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:49 pm

Well ... Niamh took home two of the plants when they were about a foot tall ... and my brother transplanted them into a south-facing bed. This was at the beginning of June and so need to get feedback ...

The others I planted out into the flower beds. Lots of warmth and glorious sunshine ... they began to flower. Then came the rain, and the slugs (growl) who chomped away at the stem ( I know - I caught them and killed them) and now my sunflowers are no more.

Will keep you posted with regards to Niamh's.

Shirley · Post: # 27272Post **Shirley** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:05 am

Grrrr at the nasty slugs!!!!

A gardener's job is not always an easy one

Hugs.

Chickpea · Post: # 27287Post **Chickpea** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 9:21 am

A couple of years ago our sunflowers were getting chomped. I tried all the anti-slug measures I know - beer traps, broken eggshells, ash, copper strips but nothing worked. Then I saw a bally squirrel climbing up the sunflowers and eating the seeds out of the flowerheads. No wonder the slug measures didn't work, eggshells won't deter squirrels.

Shirley · Post: # 27290Post **Shirley** » Sat Jul 22, 2006 9:48 am

Oh dear... but at least you got to the seeds on the sunflower stage lol..... mine haven't even thought about flowering.

Mancblue · Post: # 27838Post **Mancblue** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:17 am

Hi, just typed in "tallest sunflower" in google and ended up here. Hope you don't mind a stranger diving in to your conversation.
We (myself, my girlfriend and our daughter) planted 7 sunflowers in may, mainly for our daughter and I was wondering who had the tallest sunflower as our tallest is 6ft 9" and still going with no sign of a flower yet, so how does this compare with yourselves?.
I remember growing sunflowers as a child and they looked huge to me then, so this on must look massive to our daughter.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/colin.gree ... flower.htm

I'll post some pics when they flower as well, also could you tell me, will the one in the middle flower on all three stems? as I've not seen this before.

Thank you.

Chickpea · Post: # 27841Post **Chickpea** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:25 am

Welcome Mancblue. We don't mind you joining in at all, in fact I hope you'll have a bit of a look around the Selfsufficientish site since you're here.

You're not so far from me, I'm near Stockport.

I'd love to see pics of your sunflowers, the one with potentially three heads sounds interesteing. I've no idea what it will do but it sounds great.

I have three kids and every year we plant sunflowers and get very excited when they're taller than the smallest, then taller than the middle kid, then taller than the oldest, taller than mummy and if they get taller than daddy it's thrilling. I don't mind when the kids run outside every day to compare themselves to the flowers but it gets repeptitive when I have to go and stand next to it to see if it's bigger than me yet.

Shirley · Post: # 27842Post **Shirley** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:28 am

You aren't a stranger now that you've made a post

Welcome to the forum. I've got family in your neck of the woods (ish!)

WOW - that's a good size!! Great pics too. I imagine that the one with three stems might flower on all three... Looking forward to seeing the pics with flowers.

I'm entering the smallest sunflower competition.... LOL

Hope you enjoy having a look around the site...

Mancblue · Post: # 27844Post **Mancblue** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:52 am

Thanks for the welcome, I've been snooping round the site. Mainly at anything to do with tomatoes as we're trying to grow them too!

Our Sunflower are already bigger than the whole family, me being only 6ft tall, my daughter loves that they're bigger than me. Although my son (was 1 in june) loves to pull things up

Do many of you have allotment's as it's something were considering, as we don't have much rear garden space and we don't wont to dig up the front.

Ps. Shirley we have some dwarf sunflowers in the front if you want to claim them for your smallest sunflower comp?

Shirley · Post: # 27885Post **Shirley** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 1:20 pm

Mine are supposed to be full sized... nay they are supposed to be GIANT ones capable of reaching 25 ft HAHAHAHA. They are about 2 ft!!

Thanks for the offer Blue... will pop in past sometime

(are you a Man City fan by any chance??)

ina · Post: # 27985Post **ina** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 5:40 am

Mine has stopped growing now - it's actually drooping downwards. However, there are 6 flowers on it, all open, and the seventh has nice fat seeds in it! Do I get a special price for that?

(Must get a camera - but Shirley has seen it, not with all the flowerheads open, though...

_

Mancblue · Post: # 29284Post **Mancblue** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:14 pm

Just an update on the flowers, they're still growing and the tallest is 7"10 and none of them are showing signs of flowering, will they ever flower???

Also we have our first Money Maker toms

, still green and about the size of a 2p, but exciting all the same.

Shirley · Post: # 29292Post **Shirley** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 5:19 pm

OK I've been shamed into it - HERE, finally, are the photos of Ina's Sunflowers

Timberframer (David) posing with Ina's sunflower (hoping to take the credit as one of ours methinks LOL)

Lou8 · Post: # 29454Post **Lou8** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 10:36 am

My one is now about 4 foot tall but still no sign of flowering.

ina · Post: # 29461Post **ina** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:05 am

Great big thank you, Shirley!

Mancblue · Post: # 29755Post **Mancblue** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:29 pm

Quick update,

Our tallest flower is 8ft 7" so far and as stated in another post they look like there starting to show heads, I now need a step to reach the top.

Might need to get planning permission soon, the neighbours are losing out on sunlight.

I will put some pics up soon, when the show flowers.