I need help please with sunflowers

[Digeroo]

I grew two gorgeous sunflower plants - multiheaded types but they were weeds.  I sowed several packets and only four came up. 

What am I going wrong?  Should I risk sowing some in the Autumn and letting them choose when to germinate?

[Digeroo]

[Duke Ellington]

*I grew two gorgeous sunflower plants - multiheaded types but they were weeds* ...(what do you mean by this statement?)

Did you sow them direct into the ground?
I used to have a problem with sunflowers when I sowed them into the ground but now I sow them in pots in the greenhouse and then transplant them later on. Mice love sunflower seeds too :)

Duke

[Digeroo]

Two sunflowers popped up in my allotment.  And they grew and grew until each one had up to twenty flowers.  Not the biggest giants but seven feet of glorious brown and yellow flowers.  I did not sow the seeds so the local mice/birds must have dropped them.

Sunflowers have popped up on various allotments all over the site.  All those that have arrived as weeds have done considerably better than those which were planted on purpose.

[Squash64]

I've had lovely 'rogue' sunflowers too. :)  I've often thought of scattering a packet of seeds on the ground in the Autumn and leaving them to get on with it.

[Duke Ellington]

My friend has some *wild sunflowers growing in her garden*. They look more like s large yellow brown daisys  than regular sunflowers but there are plenty of flowers on them. She says that they are a bit of a thug in her garden and are really hard to get rid of. They have quite a tough root system.
It might be that you have some of these wild ones? perhaps maybe?

Duke

[saddad]

The rogues grow better because they get no root disturbance with transplanting. What you don't see are all the others that got slugged out small. We always transplant but do tolerate strays. If you scatter now you are just wasting seeds, like the ones under the bird feeder they will be eaten, or slugged or killed by the frosts...  :-X

[Digeroo]

I think they are cross breeds from last years planting.  Never seen a wild sunflower in the vicinity and the flowers are large but not huge.  No they are definitely regular sunflowers but a multiheaded brown one must have cross with a large headed one yellow one.  (THe selection from around the site last year).  

The problem of putting a packet in Autumn time is mice.  I presume they will hoover most of them up.  Unfortunately our Kestral has got caught in someones netting.

There was no root disturbance from the ones I sowed and I covered in netting.  Most of them failed to show.  Not clear whether they were slugged out, moused out, deered out, squirrels out not to mention rabbits.  And this happened the previous year when there were no slugs. 

There is a type called Earth Walker from T&M and I do believe I have never managed to grow one.