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Helianthus
(Sunflowers) Sunflowers -
their history and cultivation From
The Garden magazine In 1888 Vincent van Gogh
was living in Provence, in The Yellow House at
Arles, which he hoped would become the centre for a
new and innovative artistic community. During the
summer of that year he painted a series of pictures
of orchards, gardens and sunflowers and used them
to decorate the house for the visit of Paul Gaugin,
whom he hoped would lead this new community, in the
October of that year. He wanted this decoration to
create 'effects like those of a stained-glass
windows in a Gothic church.' Influenced by the view of
Japanese society that he found in their woodblock
prints, he imagined that in this new life people
would 'live in nature as though they were flowers.'
The idea of the sunflower, its symbolic name and
its colour came to represent van Gogh's conviction
that an artistic renaissance could only take place
in the sun and he painted them in gardens, in the
familiar yellow and cream vase and he also painted
them as they aged and developed seed. For the gardener even the
briefest look at these vibrant sunflower pictures
reveals something unexpected. Few of the flowers
arranged in that familiar cream and yellow vase
resemble today's idea of a typical sunflower. Some
have very slim and shaggy petals, some have almost
no ray florets at all and resemble fat orange
buns. Catalogues from the late
1880s show few variants. There is a tall single
yellow, probably close to wild types, while a
primrose yellow single was new in 1889. There was
also a dwarf form reaching about 90cm (3ft), a tall
double orange and a shorter, well-branched, small
flowered form. The types shown in van Gogh's
paintings were probably from gardens where they
were grown from home-saved seed. These were
inherently less stable than today's varieties and
without the roguing employed by seed companies a
range of variants would occur
spontaneously. Sunflowers in the wild
and in gardens Sunflowers belong to the
genus Helianthus L. This genus of 67 species
comprises both annuals and perennials, including
the Jerusalem artichoke, but the annual sunflower,
Helianthus annuus, is the best known. Native to the
Americas, it is the state flower of Kansas, the
sunflower is a highly variable plant in the wild.
It can reach up to 3m (10ft) in height, the leaves
can be from 10-40cm in length, the flowers can be
2-6in (5-15cm) across but all these factors are
greatly influenced both by the genetic make up of
individual plants and by the situation in which
they are growing. Generally native to
scrubland and disturbed habitats, especially in
drier regions, its natural distribution is confused
by the fact that the sunflower had been long
cultivated even by the time Columbus and Western
science arrived in the Americas and has become
widely naturalised. It is a weed in many
areas. Since those few varieties
were listed in seed catalogues in the late
nineteenth century, many forms have been
introduced. The main developments have been a
widening of the colour range, the introduction of
more double flowered sorts and a reduction in the
height of some varieties to make them more suitable
for small gardens and for cutting. Recently F1
hybrid, so-called 'pollen free' cultivars have been
introduced. Amongst those in unusual
colours, the tall 'Velvet Queen' is a deep and
sumptuous velvety reddish brown at its best but it
seems unstable and in my garden it has proved
variable. The F1 hybrid 'Prado Red' is certainly
more even in colour and at 4-6ft (1.2-1.8m) is also
a little shorter. 'Valentine' is a lovely creamy
yellow with a black disc and 'Moonwalker' has
attractively branched pale heads with rather a
frilly look. This year 'Pastiche' has
been introduced from their own breeding by Thompson
& Morgan. This unusual mixture in honey, beige,
pinkish cream, soft yellow and pale russet tones
also includes combinations of these colours. The
well-established 'Music Box' mixture is much
shorter than most, reaching only about 3ft (90cm)
and this too comes in a good range of colours from
traditional orange and yellow through creams with
the addition of mahogany shades. Few of the newer F1 hybrid
sunflowers bred for cutting are yet available to
home gardeners. 'Oranges and Lemons' is a mix in
two colours, 'Sunbeam' is an attractive
orange-yellow cultivar with green eyes while 'Full
Sun' is an especially striking, large flowered
cultivar whose stem turns through 90° behind
the flower so that the face of the flower looks
right at you. There are still relatively
few double flowered cultivars and some are less
than immediately appealing. 'Teddy Bear', also
sometimes known as 'Golden Globe', reaches about
2ft (60cm) with yellow, pincushion flowers with no
rays. 'Sungold' with big double flowers on 6-8ft
(1.8-2.4m) stems is also occasionally
listed. Dwarf types are slowly
becoming more widely available. 'Holiday' reaches
about 4ft (1.2m) and branches strongly from the
base. It was bred for cutting but also makes a
wonderful border plant. 'Big Smile' is an adaptable
variety which will flower well at about 15in (38cm)
in a pot or 2ft (60cm) or more in the border.
In gardens the taller
sunflowers make a superb screen around the
vegetable garden, or to divide it. Avoid the
tallest cultivars, 'Valentine', 'Prado Red' and
'Prado Yellow', or 'Oranges and Lemons' would be
ideal. Along new boundaries they can make a
spectacular show. If space allows grow three or
four cultivars, one behind the other. The tallest
like 'Russian Giant', which will often reach 8ft
(2.4m), can go at the back, then a row of
'Valentine' or 'Pastiche', then 'Teddy Bear' or
'Music Box' in front. In mixed borders
'Moonwalker', 'Velvet Queen' or 'Sunbeam' make a
most elegant back of the border presence which can
be especially valuable in the first year after
planting when tall perennials may not make their
full height. But even in later seasons their colour
and elegance ensure that they continue to give full
value. Economic
uses The sunflower has a long
history of uses by man. In Mexico it was used as a
decoration on sculpture and Aztec princesses were
crowned with garlands of sunflowers. When settlers
arrived they found the American native peoples
making a black or dark blue dye from the seeds and
a yellow dye from the flowers. The fibres were used
in basketry and weaving and poultice of the plant
was even used to treat snakebite. In Europe seeds have been
roasted and ground to make a coffee-like drink and
are still widely used in breads. The pith in the
stem, which is ten times lighter than cork, was
once used in lifebelts. In more recent times,
sunflowers have become widely cultivated for their
seeds which are used to make cooking oil and cattle
feed as well as food for birds but it is as a cut
flower that the sunflower has really
developed. Sunflowers have always
been grown for cutting to a limited extent but the
centenary of van Gogh's death in 1990 started to
revive interest and this was combined with the
arrival from Japan of new 'pollen free' F1 hybrid
cultivars. Flower arrangers have
always been deterred from using sunflowers because
they shed so much yellow pollen. In fact these new
types are not truly pollen free, but the anthers
are trapped in the flower head and only in the very
hottest weather, such as we had last summer, is any
pollen released. Marks and Spencers
pioneered the sale of sunflowers for cutting as
soon as these more convenient varieties became
available. One grower in Norfolk now grows 10 acres
of sunflowers in the open ground and a system has
been developed to provide flowers about
4-6in/10-15cm across all the year round. Larger
flowers are ungainly and are too heavy for the
stems. Seed is sown outside from
mid-March to end of May and the crop cut from early
June to the end of September or even October. The
seeds are sown 2in/5cm apart in rows 8in/20cm apart
giving five rows to a 1m/40in bed. This close
spacing ensures that the plants quickly develop a
straight stem and also restricts the size of the
flowers. If the same varieties are grown at a much
wider spacing, they grow taller and the flower
heads become too large. To provide material for
cutting for the rest of the year some producers of
all-the-year-round chrysanthemums are now also
growing sunflowers under glass, where they fit well
into the regime of blackouts and supplementary
lighting required to produce chrysanthemums for
cutting. The vast majority of the
demand is for the usual orange-yellow flowers with
black centres, 'Sunbright' is the most popular
amongst commercial growers but is not yet available
to home gardeners. The paler flowered cultivars are
much less popular as cut flowers and there is
little demand for doubles, green-centred types of
those in reds or pastel shades. Home gardeners
wishing to grow sunflowers for cutting should try
'Oranges and Lemons', 'Sunbeam' and 'Prado Yellow'.
The vase life of 'Prado Red' is unfortunately
poor. First published
in The Garden (the Journal of the Royal
Horticultural Society), July 1996
Helianthus
(Sunflowers) A-Z
