Planting Sunflowers: Five Essential Tips

Sunflowers make wonderful additions to the garden and are ideal warm season annuals for California’s warm and dry Mediterranean summers. Here are five tips for planting sunflowers:

• Sunflowers are direct sown into the garden in spring. Before planting, incorporate several inches of high-quality compost into garden soil. GardenZeus does not recommend sunflower transplants:  sunflower plants develop long taproots, which are crucial in helping them forage for nutrients and establish drought tolerance. Transplanting often disrupts the development process of the taproot and  transplanted sunflowers typically do not grow as tall as direct-sown sunflowers.
• Thoroughly pre-irrigate garden soil.
• Plant seeds 1 inch deep. Sunflower seeds are large and can be susceptible to rotting before germination if they sit in extremely wet soil.
• Compared to other types of seeds, planted sunflower seeds can imbibe and hold large amounts of water and are susceptible to damping off. To water sunflower seeds, water only when the soil surface is dry and the soil 1/4 inch below the surface is dry before watering again. Allowing the soil to dry down will prevent seeds from rotting or seedlings from succumbing to damping off.
• The ideal air temperature for sunflower seed germination is 75 °F. Soil temperature should be at least 60 °F, but optimally at least 70°F. In these conditions, sunflower seeds should germinate within 1-2 weeks.

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Other articles of interest:

Watering Sunflowers for Maximum Seed Production

Sunflower Varieties: Growing for Seeds and Cut Flowers