Plant Spotlight: Sunflowers (Helianthus)

If you’re reading this, you already have an innate appreciation for sunflowers. Otherwise, why click?

But what is it about sunflowers? Garden after garden, year after year, decade after decade, we keep making room for them.

It would be easy to say, it’s already been done, that sunflowers are boring or overplayed, and move on to something else. I’ve done that. And then, of course, the following year I plant far too many to make up for it.

There has to be a reason we keep coming back to them.

Whenever I plant sunflowers in the garden, I think they’ll be pleasant but unremarkable. They’ll be reliable, structural, and nice to have around. But I never really expect much more.

And then they put on their show, and I can’t look away.

Is it the height, so tall and architectural, anchoring the garden? The tiny disc flowers that fall away and slowly reveal the seeds? The goldfinches that arrive to feast? Maybe it’s the texture of the petals, pulling me in like I’m a pollinator. Or the way sunlight shines through those golden petals?

It could be any one of those things. Or all of them.

Whatever it is, I’ve learned this: sunflowers are not to be underestimated. In backyard gardens, cottage gardens, and cutting beds alike, they earn their place every single season.

Why do you love sunflowers?

I’ll let you count the ways.