How to Plant Giant Sunflower Seeds Easily

When summer comes, it’s a great time for planters to grow any plants they want in their garden or house yard. The sunflower has become one of the plants favored by a lot of people around the world to plant. However, they bring their own uniqueness and attractiveness for borner plant ornament.

In this summer, you may learn the secret of growing the giant sunflowers to get the record-breaking sizes and heights. In fact, the giant sunflowers will have a chance for the Guinness Book of World Records. Who knows that your giant sunflower will be in the world record this year.

Of course, if you want to grow the giant sunflowers, you may have to be a little more tired and complicated in taking care of them. However, that’s not a hard case, considering to have the giant sunflowers is your longtime dream as well. Let’s learn how to plant the giant sunflowers from our guides as follows!

Planting Giant Sunflowers Seeds, Here’s for Guides!

There are some tips and tricks that you should follow in order to have the giant sunflower plants. Here you go!

Choose the Superior Sunflower Seeds

The only thing that you should notice before you go on planting the sunflower seeds is to choose the superior seeds which may be worth planting. However, genetics is one of the things that you must consider. You need to start looking for a variety of sunflower words like giant, kong, tall, monster, mammoth and more.

Knowing about giant sunflower genetics is totally a must for you. Thankfully, this post will show you some sunflower genetics which will be growing in giant size, they are:

• • American Giant: 16-feet tall, 10-inch flowers with 65 to 80 days.
  • Giganteus: 12-feet tall with 18-inch flowers.
  • Mongolian Giant Sunflower: 12 to 14-feet tall with 16-18-inch flowers.
  • Original Sun: 10-feet tall, multiple branches or 5-18-feet tall with 18-24-inch flowers.
  • Skyscraper sunflower: 12-feet tall with 14-inch flowers.
  • Sunzilla: 12-16-feet tall.
  • Paul Bunyan: 15-18-feet tall with 18-24-inch flowers.
  • Russian Giant or Mammoth: 10-feet tall with 20-inches flowers.

Of course, there are still many giant sunflower genetics that you can choose for planting.

Choose Full Sun Area

As you know, the sunflowers really need a lot of sun. Ideally, the good spot to plant the sunflower is able to provide 6-8 hours of sun a day which has  very low risk of wind or storm damage.

Plant the Sunflowers in Rich Soil

Aside from growing the sunflowers in a full sun area, you must also have rich soil with well-draining soil which is free of rocks or tree roots. You may already know that any obstacles in the ground will hinder the root growth. Alternatively, you can also grow the sunflowers seed in a pot but the way will not produce the giant sunflowers at all.

Before you plant the sunflowers, you should know that they are very hungry plants which will need a lot of nutrients even growing the big flowers and also thousands of seeds. All things you need to do is to choose the rich, loamy and well-draining soil. If compost is available in your area, it’s better for you to choose those spots.

Give More Spaces

Generally, the sunflowers will grow anywhere from 6 to 36 inches apart. But, the size will be different when you want to grow the giant sunflowers. You’d better allow more space than usual sunflower size. However, by allowing the space for roots, they will spread several feet in a direction both horizontally and down into the ground.

To plant the giant sunflowers, you need also to consider the wind breeze. The taller sunflower, the more susceptible they are to wind breakage or snapping under the weight of a climbing squirrel. Well, the best place to grow the giant sunflower is near a tall fence or wall which is out of direct wind.

Furthermore, you can also add any support stakes or tall cages when the sunflowers are still young and the roots are small. However, the older sunflowers will grow, the fussier they will get. So any obstacles which will happen later must be prevented at all.

Cover the Seeds After Sowing with Mulch

The one thing that you should know is that the sunflowers don’t resist drying out even though they also don’t like swampy soil. Well, to prevent them from drought, finely chopped bark mulch will totally help in keeping moisture in and gradually decompose to amend your soil.

Feeding Your Sunflowers

To grow the giant sunflower will not be separated from feeding and taking care of them. Of course, you should water and fertilize regularly. When the sunflowers are still small, you need to water around the root zone for about 3-4” from the plant with about 2 gallons of properly diluted liquid fertilizer per week.

For larger sunflowers, you should scrape out a small doughnut-shaped moat about 18 inches around the plant. The root of sunflowers will grow to 4 feet below the soil surface. You need to avoid pouring fertilizer on the stems directly.

Taking Care of the Giant Sunflowers

Some planter experts suggest you take care of your giant sunflowers as members of your family. You need to be more attentive to weather reports, especially when your plant is growing taller and more top-heavy. When heavy winds are predicted to happen today, delaying to water the plant is a must for you. However, this way can reduce their chances of blowing over.

Aside from that, you also have to keep your giant sunflowers from pests. They are totally the number one killer of sunflowers. This will begin after sowing the sunflower seeds. There are some wildlife animals as  sunflower seeds eaters including birds, squirrels, mice and more animals which can smell the seeds from far and wide distance.

Another great tip that we can give to you is to keep the sunflower putting all its energy toward height, you can also remove any extra side shoots. You can just grow a single stalk with a flower on top.