Do you like this beautiful yellow flower that looks like the sun? Let’s take a look at the tips to plant your own sunflower seeds at home!
This flower with an identical color of fiery yellow comes from northern America, Mexico to be exact. In addition to soothing the eyes, this flower can beautify the home page and garden. For that, sunflowers are the best choice if you want to make the page seem more cheerful.
Flowers that have a height of 0.5 to 4.5 meters can grow anywhere. Because of its beautiful shape, many tourist attractions carry the theme of sunflower gardens as the main attraction.
Make sure you choose quality seeds to produce good plants later. Immediately, let’s follow how to plant sunflower seeds below!
Sunflower Seeds Planting Tips
This beautiful flower has many enthusiasts and planting sunflowers is not as difficult as you think, you know. Therefore, consider the following tips to plant sunflower seeds!
1. Determine Suitable Land
The main requirement for plants to grow well is to pay attention to the land where the plants are. Some things you should pay attention to in order to support plant growth, among others:
Soil Type and pH
The type of soil to be used determines the quality of the plant. Therefore, to get the right type of soil you have to make sure the required pH ranges from 6.0 to 7.5.
Environmental conditions
Choose and condition a good plant environment. For the growing period, sunflowers should be planted in a shady place and protected from the roof that has the potential to collapse.
Light intensity
Sufficient sunlight can maximize the growth of sunflowers properly.
Water Needs
The need for sufficient water and with a good drainage system are two things that are equally important for the growth of sunflowers.
2. Choose the Kind of Sunflower Seeds to Plant
Before starting cultivation, it’s a good idea to consider what type of sunflower seeds is suitable and easy to plant.
Meanwhile, for ornamental plants. There are several types of sunflowers that you can plant, including:
- Mammoth, this type of flower has a diameter of 30 cm when blooming.
- Autumn Beauty, this type of flower has a combination of orange, red and brown flower colors and the diameter when blooming reaches 15 cm.
- Fiesta del sol, this type of flower is characterized by striking colors such as orange and red with a flower height of up to 1 meter.
- Big Smile, has a height of only 30 cm and is suitable for narrow areas.
- Sunbeam, has a height of up to 1 meter in diameter.
3. Choose Good Quality Seeds
Each type of sunflower has a different shape of sunflower seeds, such as:
- Mammoth gray type, white with black-brown stripes and large in size.
- The type of velvet queen, has a smaller size compared to the type of mammoth gray.
- This type of evening sun, this seed has a variety of colors, ranging from white to black.
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4. Seeding Flower Seeds
After choosing the right sunflower seeds, the next step is to sow sunflower seeds.
This is to ensure uniform growth of sunflower seeds when they are ready to be planted later if you want to sell them. For that, you can do the following seeding steps:
- Check the temperature, sunflowers usually grow big and can produce new seeds takes 80-120 days depending on the type. The temperature for sunflowers to grow well is around 64-91o F or 18-33oC.
- Soak the seeds first, the seeds or sun seeds must be soaked first using liquid organic fertilizer at a rate of 1 cup aqua for 10 liters of water for 6 hours.
- Dry with a tissue, you can dry the sunflower seeds using a tissue.
- Place the seeds in a tissue and fold, this method can maximize shoot growth. The planted seeds take 11 days to emerge to the soil surface.
- Cut the edges of the seed coat, if in 2-3 days it doesn’t grow then you can cut the edges of the seeds carefully so as not to damage the inner seeds, then add water to make them moist.
5. Pay attention to the distance when planting
After sowing the seeds, when planting flowers you also need to pay attention to a distance of approximately 45 cm, because this slightly loose distance can accelerate the growth of sunflowers.
You can insert the two sunflower seeds into one hole at a time. After that, wait for 14-21 days so you know the progress.
6. Cover the Sunflower with a Bottle of Mineral Water
You can cover sunflower plants with used mineral water cups, you know. This aims to protect the flowers from damage that is usually caused by rain or even nosy hands who want to pluck sunflowers.
This bottle can keep moisture for plants. You only need to wait a few weeks for the shoots to grow.
7. Take good care of sunflowers
Two-month-old sunflowers should be fertilized regularly to keep them fertile and protected from plant pests. When it is three months old, of course sunflowers already have buds.
Therefore, in order to get good flowers, you can cut flower buds that are considered less good in growth. Water the flowers twice a day and fertilize regularly!
8. Cutting Flowers and Harvesting Sunflower Seeds
After the sunflowers grow well, you can cut the flowers to be used as home decorations and also plant the seeds.
To place the flowers in a vase, you can cut the stems at a certain angle in the morning before the flowers are fully open. As for harvesting the seeds, you need to pay attention when the flower heads droop and the seeds start to dry and turn brown
Those are tips as well as how to plant sunflower seeds correctly. After successfully planting sunflowers, make sure you also take care of them properly.
