WILD WAY: OCTOBER 2023

10 x OCTOBER FLOWERS / OUTDOOR TOMATOES / KESTREL

SUNFLOWERS

In 2023 I went all in growing annual sunflowers. Over the years I’ve visited many National Trust gardens in autumn and fallen for the various amber and orange varieties that inevitably grew among veggies, so this year I grew a whole bunch myself!

Last winter I carefully selected a few very special colours, from left to right they are: 'Red Sun', 'Pro Cut White Nite', 'Earth Walker' and 'Ruby Eclipse'. The fifth is also ‘Ruby Eclipse’ as the petals emerge, technically called a ray floret on sunflowers.

These are all smaller multi flowered varieties that have been flowering for a couple of months now and are still going. They grow to between shoulder and head height, so they aren’t massive. They’re all good, beautiful plants and I’d recommend any. My favourite is the rust colour of ‘Earth Walker’.

Growing them was pretty easy, though I will confess to you that I had to buy the seeds twice after every seedling sown directly in the ground was eaten by slugs in April. It was a co…