My sunflowers are drooping!?
If you are referring to the head drooping, that is normal, they are starting to make seed, you will see the inside of the head, sort of shedding small petals the head droops, the coating in the the inside fall off and the seed start to form. You need to feed it through out its life, until you harvest the heads. Simple blossom booster will work well. Miracle grow makes this but there are many brands. Once all the petals fall off and the lower leaves start to brown it is time to harvest your heads. Cut them off with enough stalk to be able to hang them to dry. Once dry the will easily fall from the blossom, and you can soak in salt and bake or harvest for your birds. If you leave them on the stalk to dry with out cutting, you may loose your seeds to the wildlife. If your leafs are what is drooping, this is caused by too much water, towards the end of the season the plant requires less water, the roots are actually slowing down. Pull back on the water and allow it to dry well in between. I have these beautiful flowers all through out my garden. I am growing some to eat but most for the birds. Mine also have reached 12 feet and plus! are they just too awesome! God Bless grandma
Help, I killed all of my sunflowers!?
now I know that sunflowers are supposed to be easy to grow, but i can't keep them alive to save my own life!... i've always tried to grow them from seed, and it never fails - they always die on me!... the most recent batch - i planted them in those little expandable pellet things... i had 6... 4 petered out and died... the remaining 2 weren't looking too happy... the first, original leaves had wilted and looked dead - but yesterday they had new leaves forming at the top, and i thought everything was ok.... now today both plants are looking pretty dead. the plants aren't more than 2-3 inches tall at this point. what's going on? am i starting them in too little dirt? am i giving them too much water? (i've tried to keep the soil moist, and all of my other seedlings seem to be loving it)... what to do? i've got tons more seeds, but i want to know what i'm doing wrong (and what i should start doing right) before i up and kill any more of them!
Why is my sunflower sprout droopy?
I just started some seedlings indoors. Yes I would have preferred to start them outside in a cold frame with a seedling heat mat beneath them but winter weather wasn't cooperating. So I like you started my seedling next to a window.When my seedlings started stretching and starting to wobble and fall, I took some pipe cleaners and bent them into little crutches. I placed them in the dirt next to the seedlings and propped my “droopers” up. I also added a small fluorescent light above them. Now they stretch up towards the light and don't fall as much. Works for me!
Do sunflowers smell bad after a week?
you really should change the water in your vase every 3-4 days and put more flower food in it. if you dont they bacteria in the water will always make them stink and greatly reduce vase life. thats the reason they stink.
How long after sunflowers begin to droop from weight should they be harvested?
We started growing mammoth sunflowers a couple of years ago and harvested the seeds. Some we roasted and the rest I planted outside in April, after the likelihood of a frost passed. It's the beginning of September and they've started to hang their heads, a sign it's nearly time for them to relinquish their position in our garden. I expect they will now start to drop the petals and gradually turn yellow then brown on the backside of the flowers. As the petals drop off, the florets will dry up and the seed kernels will become visible. There are tiny petals covering the seeds which will dry and fall out leaving the mature seeds visible. When the seeds look nice and plump and the coats are black or black with white stripes (depending on the variety) I cut them off about a foot below the seed heads. Each floret in the center of the flower head is its own individual flower and each will produce a seed.If you harvest the heads too early you'll have lots of seed coats but very little meat. If you wait too long the seeds may be too dry and won't be suitable for roasting or sowing. You aren't the only one who's looking forward to harvesting the seeds. Wildlife have also been watching for the all-you-can-eat buffet to begin; birds, squirrels, raccoons and deer can devour a small crop very quickly. If you're concerned that the birds will start on them before you've had a chance to harvest, you can cover with a loosely fitted paper bag, fine string mesh or netting or an onion bag soon after the petals start to wilt.
Why are there white spots on my sunflower sprout?
Sorry that I didn't get a chance to answer earlier. I don't agree it's tiny burnt spots from the sun shining through water droplets on the leaves. If that was true, we'd see similar damage every time the sun came out after a rain.While there's no way I can be certain, it's more likely it's fungal disease. I don't know where you live so no idea what the weather conditions have been that might have led to this. Two possible diseases are leaf smut caused by 1. Entyloma polysporum and leaf spot caused by 2. Ramularia helianthi. Here are two photos showing them.They basically look the same and I can't tell you exactly what your plant might have. But I notice in your second photo, the plant growing in the pot seems to have a similar problem with some of its leaves too. The stem of your sunflower is thin and very lanky and not doing well. Honestly, if it were me, I'd discard the one growing and start a few more, planting the seeds directly in the soil in a sunny warm spot. Don't try starting in a pot and transplanting. It works but your plants won't be as strong and sturdy as ones directly sown. Cool damp weather leads to far more fungal diseases in plants so wait till it's nice and warm where you are.
How do sunflowers produce seeds?
Have you ever seen a sunflower?The “flower” of the sunflower is actually a cluster of tiny flowers that just *looks* like a single flower. That black central disk is where the reproductive mini-flowers are; they are the ones that, after pollination, will produce sunflower seeds. In the flower above, the black flowers are ready for pollination; the “petals” are actually special non-reproductive flowers of their own, each bearing a single large petal.Once the flowers are pollinated, the disk structure of the flower begins to droop, and the sunflower seeds begin to form, as you see below:Then, eventually, once the seeds are formed, the left over petals of the flower start to drop off, revealing a disk whose surface is studded with sunflower seeds.These sunflower seeds are shucked off the disk, like corn kernels off a cob:and they become the sunflower seeds we know and love:Inside every one of these seeds is a sunflower kernel, the tiny edible part that we eat. Nowadays, we shell the kernels for sale and consumption using specialized machines. (Some people do put the whole seeds in their mouths, chewing the seed shells like bubblegum and then spitting the shells out after eating the kernel.)
Why is there a wood chip in ever bag of sunflower seeds?
I know its not a wood chip, I just don't know what to call it, but why is there that wood thing in like every bag! There is always atleast 1 of them, or sometimes 2, and sometimes 3! Like I had today! What is it? Why is it in there?
My dog got ahold of a small bag of sunflower seeds. It looks like he ate a lot of them (shell on). Is he going to be ok or does he need to go to the vet?
Let me preface this by saying, I am a dog groomer. I worked on a wire fox terrier one time that had raided the bird feeder and eaten copious amounts of sunflowers. He ended up pooping them out on my grooming table while I was trying to give him a haircut. I was not well pleased.I wouldn’t worry about it overmuch unless your dog quits eating or drinking, looks like he is in discomfort, or if he swells in the abdominal areas. I will warn you, however, that if he does pass them there will be loose stool and gas. Lots and lots of gas.Good luck.