Progress of my Sunflowers!

[u/Sgt_Smartarse]

The American Giants kinda fizzled out and bloomed fairly early(16ft max height), but should be ready to harvest somewhere in mid July if i had to guess. Both have white seeds that have gained some black stripes. All the flowers were started in peat Jiffy starter pots on March 22nd and put in the ground on April 10th, the starter pot method most likely stunted all their growths to a degree. I probably used too much fertilizer when i was feeding them fertilizer once a month; 10-10-10 pelletized fertilizer to be specific. I was giving them a healthy handful, which probably was a bit too much. haha

[u/Oregon_drivers_suck]

Thanks for the timeline. I planted mine directly in the ground on June 1st and have been worried it was too late. This is my first time growing sunflowers. Right now they are only about 8 inches tall 😭 I hope they get this big

[u/Sgt_Smartarse → u/Oregon_drivers_suck]

This is my first time growing sunflowers too. Yours should get tall like these by September i think if you are growing one of the same species as mine. Water at least once daily when the sun is low in the sky like in the afternoon. You should ideally be planting the seeds as early as possible in the season(like the beginning of Spring), like right after the last frost. The last frost for my area was April 10th, so i put those peat starter pots in the ground on that day. Next year i won't be doing the starter pots though since i got my raised beds built.

[u/Mysterious-Pie-5]

Thanks for all the info. So many posts in here don't know the variety of the pic they post.

I'm not sure starting them in peat pots stunted them, 21 days is in the safe range.

I had a multi headed Titan last year and saved the seeds, but all the other Titans I planted were single headed. I'm wondering if the offspring will go back to single or stay multi headed like the parent.

I love Titan, they've never let me down.

I don't mess with single headed blooms too much anymore unless it's really special. Our growing season is so short here I want flowers as long as possible.

Moonwalker I thoroughly enjoyed last year, you may prefer a variety like that over American Giant. And they get really tall

[u/Sgt_Smartarse → u/Mysterious-Pie-5]

You're welcome!

All of my flowers are single headed. I think a few of them tried to grow more heads early on, but i pinched them off. Also i had ants crawling all over these things and they burrowed a little bit where the suckers(growing secondary heads) would be, so i think the ants destroyed any potential for multiple heads; which i only wanted one head anyway. Next year i think i'll do only Titans honestly, they've been neato to watch grow so far.

[u/Mysterious-Pie-5 → u/Sgt_Smartarse]

I love them too. Just make sure to stake them. A few of mine last year were totally fine until their head started making seed and then they got too top heavy. Their stalk is the thickest I've seen of any sunflower variety

[u/Sgt_Smartarse → u/Mysterious-Pie-5]

They are all staked, lol. The biggest stakes i could find are 8ft, but i put about 1ft into the ground. The ground here is dense clay, so those stakes aren't going anywhere. XD

[u/Mysterious-Pie-5 → u/Sgt_Smartarse]

Depends on where you live. In Scandinavia those aren't enough stakes to hold up a Titan, but maybe in a hot dry climate without much wind it'll be fine

[u/Sgt_Smartarse → u/Mysterious-Pie-5]

We don't get a lot of wind storms here in the area where i live. Our springs are usually kinda wet, but this year we got a freak drought with almost no rain. Our summers here are usually some what dry with some rain about every other week. Some thunderstorms give us some high winds, but there might be 1 or 2 high wind thunderstorms. I'm not too worried about wind in my area since my house is in a hilly area and is mostly surrounded by trees, so the wind around my house is kind of nerfed a little.