Sunflower

Flower care guide

Sunflower

Big, plain-spoken and impossible to be gloomy around. Sunflowers work on their own in a jug as well as they work in a mixed arrangement.

In season

Summer through autumn, with some availability year round.

Also known as

Helianthus

Caring for your sunflowers

Sunflowers drink an astonishing amount of water. A tall vase of them can empty in a day, and a sunflower that runs dry wilts fast and does not always come back. Check the level daily and top it up.

Their stems are thick and covered in fine hairs, which foul water quicker than smooth stems. Change the water completely every two days and strip all the lower leaves.

Recut at an angle each time you change the water.

Keep them out of direct sunlight, which is counterintuitive but true of the cut flower. Direct sun dries them out faster than they can drink.

The petals fall before the centre fades. Many people leave the bare heads in the vase afterward, and they hold their shape well.

Young sunflowers track the sun across the sky through the day and swing back east overnight, a behaviour called heliotropism that stops once the flower matures.