Growing Sunflowers at Home

Our Daltons Sunflowers in Kindergartens Project offers thousands of children the opportunity have a go at gardening and grow their own Kings Seeds Skyscraper Sunflower at their kindergarten.

These plants are super easy to grow at home too. Below are our top tips for growing great sunflowers in your own backyard.

 

Top tips from Daltons for growing great sunflowers at home

Every seed first needs to germinate in order to grow up in to a giant sunflower. To do this you need to plant your seeds into soil which has all the nutrients (food) it needs to germinate (sprout).  Seeds also need warmth, sunshine and water, plus a little tender loving care!


What you will need:

  • Daltons Seed Mix
  • Kings Seeds – Skyscraper sunflower  
  • Small pot e.g. yogurt container etc (just make sure it has drainage holes in the bottom)
  • Small shovel
  • Water spray bottle 
  • Plastic dish or ice-cream container to hold your pots in.

Step 1: Take your small pot and fill it (almost to the top) with your Daltons Seed Mix.

Step 2: Sow your sunflower seed into the soil about 1 - 1.5cm deep (no more than twice the DIAMETER of the seed).

Step 3: Add a little more soil on top and water lightly. Be sure to water regularly for even germination and growth, but avoid over watering as it can rot the seeds.

Step 4: Place your pots into a plastic container, such as an ice-cream or yoghurt container so they do not leak water. Keep them indoors on a nice sunny windowsill and look after them well. To germinate your seeds you will need to grow them indoors for the first month or so as it is too cold outside!


Top Tips: 

  • It’s very important to keep the temperature constant, so ensure your pots are in a very warm location. 
  • You can create your own mini green-house by taking a 1.5 litre plastic bottle, cut the bottom out and remove the lid and place it over your pot.  

When will your seedling be ready to plant outside?

When seedlings sprout, a set of leaves form first that look almost like a four-leaf clover. A few days later, a third single leaf will emerge that does not look like the first ones. This is called the first true leaf. 

Your seedlings will be big enough to plant outdoors (weather dependent) once they have sprouted their second set of true leaves. The seedling should be about 10-15cm tall.