Jan 12, 2008 4 min read

It’s wintertime — and I’m thinking about sunflowers. I had a little help getting on the topic from one of my nieces, Shawn, who relocated to Vermont a few months ago. Recently, we have been comparing snow totals. However, a package from her that recently arrived got me thinking about sunflowers.

Now, residing in the land of those famous ice cream-makers, she sent me a Ben & Jerry’s flower seed pint-sized planter.

Ingenious, really.

It’s a small ice cream-like carton that contains a bag of “super nutrient-enriched intervale organic potting soil” and several seeds of “knee-high” sunflowers.

The cardboard carton (with a hole punched in the bottom for drainage) will serve as the pot, and the lid will serve as the basin to catch excess water.

Thinking about these sunflowers – which I will be planting immediately and plan to raise on my window sill as winter sends us more snow in February, March and April – made me consider how sunflowers are so beautiful in summer and so beneficial in winter as a food source for birds and other animals.

During many a fall, I have left the dried plants in place and watched goldfinches, chickadees and squirrels hang from the seed heads as they stuffed themselves.

Sunflowers are native to North America. Their name is derived from the Greek words helios, which means “sun,” and anthos, which means “flower.” An interesting tidbit about sunflowers is that, on young plants, the flowers turn to face the sun. They only stop turning when the plant matures and the stems become too woody to sustain the movement.

Long before European settlers arrived, native North American peoples cultivated sunflowers as a food source. Today, they are still cultivated commercially for seed production for a variety of uses, including human consumption.

If you look closely, you can see that each sunflower head is actually made up of many, many tiny flowers clustered together.

The ones inside the disk have male and female parts and produce the seeds. I’ve read that a sunflower head can produce as many as 1,000 seeds. The “petals” of a sunflower are also flowers – called ray flowers – but they do not have reproductive parts, so they can’t make seeds.

The sunflowers most people are familiar with are annuals, Helianthus annus. There are perennial sunflowers, too, but the annuals are the ones that offer so many choices for the home gardener.

There are the giant varieties that can reach 10-14 feet tall. These are the sunflowers I was in awe of as a kid, and they are still one of the best seed-planting experiences you can offer a small child.

Nonetheless, over the past several years plant breeders have really done some incredible things with sunflowers. Whether you want a sunflower hedge, a border for cut flowers, or a few sunny faces for patio containers, you should be able to find just the right height sunflower – from a mere 14 inches to the 14 feet I mentioned earlier-from among the dozens of different varieties of sunflower available in seed catalogs today.

Annual sunflowers now come in a wide range of colors, too: yellows, from pale to golden, as well as orange, red, burgundy, chestnut, mahogany and bronze, or a combination of colors. Flowers may be single or double, and with or without pollen.

And they can be single-stemmed or branching.

To plant sunflower seeds in the garden, you’ll have to wait a few months until there is no danger of frost and the ground has warmed. Select a sunny location, and steer clear of soil that has a lot of nitrogen or you’ll get a lot of green and few flowers.

In the meantime, join me in thinking of summer sunflowers. I’m sure you’ll find a few fun varieties to grow in your garden this year for your enjoyment, and the enjoyment of wild creatures next winter.

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Susan Brimo-Cox gardens, observes nature and writes in Ohiopyle.

Readers can send questions or comments to her at naturesgarden@brimo-cox.com.