With your birdseed supply at stake, it’s a good idea to irrigate your plants in those thirsty times. Jerusalem artichokes are also a type of perennial helianthus ( Helianthus tuberosus), and although grown for their edible tubers, they do also produce small sunny flowers on tall stems in late summer.

The rays are a light bright yellow and, at another point of departure, the light brown discs are quite small and not as prominent as in most other varieties’ flowers. When you’re growing a sunflower strictly for ornamental purposes, it’s okay if it gets a little dehydrated – as long as it blooms. When growingfor cut flowers, you may prefer to plant them in a separate cut-flower bed or on a veg plotThe big 16-18cm flowers are centred by a rich brown disc surrounded by equally rich deep yellow rays. 11) H. annuus‘Helios Flame’ Either way, this is definitely the sunflower with the most contrasting colours and it has been credited with the RHS Award of Garden Merit. 3) H. annuus‘Garden Statement’ Technically qualifying as a dwarf variety at 75cm tall, ‘Sunsation Yellow’ boasts the plus point of a relatively long blooming season that goes well into autumn. Most of all though, it’s the very large flowers, their uncomplicated daisy-like form, the brilliant yellow colour, and their height that make sunflowers so attractive.

At 4m high, ‘Kong’ is not quite as tall as the fabled giant gorilla, but it is very much a giant among its kith and kin.

When do you plant sunflowers?

A model for the pattern of florets in the head of a sunflower was proposed by H. Vogel in 1979. [17] This is expressed in polar coordinates r = c n , {\displaystyle r=c{\sqrt {n}},} θ = n × 137.5 ∘ , {\displaystyle \theta =n\times 137.5 It has very bright sunny yellow rays centred by an amber disc so that the entire flower is rather lighter in shade than those of most varieties. 6) H. annuus‘Little Leo’ Of an intermediate height of 1.8m, what distinguishes ‘Copper Queen’ from the others on this list is the colour of its rays – they are out-and-out orange. There are two kinds of sunflowers grown commercially: oilseed sunflowers and confection sunflowers.