Sunflowers for Cutting

Double Quick Orange

If you are growing sunflowers for cut flowers you grow them differently than if you are growing one or two in your vegetable garden to attract birds. In the vegetable garden, it is fun to have the sunflower get as tall as possible. They usually have enormous flowers that are 8” or even a foot across. For cut flowers, you want flowers that are at most 6” across at most, and often quite a bit smaller. The easiest way to do this is by planting the seeds closer together. For cut flowers, I often plant my sunflowers 6” apart.

Moulin Rouge

Single Stem or Branching
Sunflower varieties for cut flowers are grouped as single stem or branching. Single stem flowers produce one flower per plant. Once the flower is harvested, the plant can be pulled out because it will not re-bloom. Branching sunflowers produce multiple flowers, and a single plant produces flowers for a longer season. I initially thought the branching kinds sounded better, and if you were only going to have one or two plants in your vegetable garden that might be true. However, I had trouble with short stems and unpredictable flower size with the branched varieties and eventually just grew the single stem kinds.


All the true reds and true oranges are branching varieties. Although some single stem varieties are advertised as orange or red, I thought the orange ones were more gold and the reds had a yellow overlay which the branching kinds do not.


Pollenless Varieties
In the garden, bees constantly collect the pollen from sunflowers so you never see it. However, if you cut a sunflower and bring it inside, the pollen quickly appears on the disk and will litter wherever you set the cut flower. To avoid this, you can grow pollenless hybrid sunflowers. These typically will say “pollenless” or “F1”. There are now dozens of these on the market. Here are some well known kinds.

Name	Type	Days	Comments
Pro Cut Series	Single	50-60	yellow, gold, pale yellow
Moulin Rouge	Branching	65-80	deep red
Double Quick Orange	Single	65	more gold than orange, but a pretty double
Buttercream	Branching	50-60	Very pale yellow to white
Sunbright	Single	70-80	yellow
Sunrich	Single	60-70	lemon, gold and orange

You can buy these varieties and many more at Johnny's and GeoSeed.

Buttercream

Succession Sowing
If you are growing single stem varieties for cut flowers, you need to succession sow several times or all your sunflowers will bloom at once. You can also choose several varieties with different maturities. When I was growing cut flowers commercially, I sowed sunflowers eight different times from the beginning of May until the beginning of October. I used different maturities at each sowing to ensure I had a continuous supply of sunflowers.

ProCut Orange

Direct Sow vs Transplant

Most people direct sow sunflowers but I had better luck starting them in liners and then transplanting them when they were about 3 weeks old. The bad luck with direct sowing was mostly because I was sowing the seeds in a very large garden and could not keep the soil consistently watered. I also may have suffered from birds or rodents eating the newly emerged seedlings. The method I used was to fill 6 pack liners with grow mix, wet the soil, and then put one seed in each cell about ½ an inch deep. The seeds usually emerged in about a week. When they were about 3 weeks old I would transplant them to the garden. If you wait too long to transplant the sunflowers, the plants will bolt and bloom on undersized plants.  

Cutting Garden for 2014

I'm growing two 100sf beds of cut flowers at Dawn Farm this year.  It seems like a lot, but when I had the business I was growing more than 60 times that amount of space in flowers, so it does not seem too extravagant. It has been a long time since I grew cut flowers just for me so I don't have good feel for how much space to devote to each flower. 

I got all the seeds for these from GeoSeed.  GeoSeed has a terrific selection and great prices.  They cater to people growing plants commercially and there are no pictures or instructions in their catalog.  However you can find this information so easily now on the web that it is no problem.  Geo is for George Park of Park Seed. 

I'm only growing my favorite things and below are the ones I chose followed by the space I'm allowing for each.




Delphinium 'Aurora'
This is a really nice hybrid perennial delphinium.  It is about 4-5 feet tall and does not need staking.  The seeds are not cheap - about $14 for 100.  Delphinium seed is only good for a couple years so I planted about half of them and of course nearly every one came up.  I'm going to put in 40 of the plants and will give the rest away.  40sf

Benary's Giant Zinnias

Zinnia Benary's Giant Mixed
This is the standard cut flower zinnia.  They are large and productive.  I direct seed almost nothing but I do direct seed these. 16sf

Annual Butterfly weed

Annual Butterfly Weed (Asclepias curassavica)
These are really nice.  More than once I have seen Monarch caterpillars on them.  12 sf






Yarrow - 'Cassis' (Achillea millefolium)
This is a nice crimson red yarrow.  Yarrow is really easy from seed. 8 sf

Calendula 'Indian Prince'
I like calendula but did not use them after awhile for the cut flower business because the stems were not always long enough.  For me I can be more flexible. 8 sf

Sweet William - 'Super Duplex'
This is the double, biennial Sweet William.  You can start them as late as July and they will look great the following year. 8 sf

Lisianthus and Apple Blossom snapdragon

Lisianthus 'Marachi' mix
'Marachi ' is a double lisianthus.  Seed was not available to non-wholesale growers until recently so I have never grown this other than from plugs.  12 sf

Snapdragon  - 'Opus' Apple Blossom
Opus is a greenhouse variety of snapdragon but they grown just fine outside.  Appleblossom is a combination white and soft pink which I really like. 12 sf








Cosmos - Double Click mix
I did not use cosmos much for the business because it is tedious to cut enough to make much of a show, but they are nice flowers and easy to grow.  8 sf

Amazon Duo

Amazon Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)
Amazon is an annual Sweet William that blooms the first year from seed.  They come in three colors - rose, cherry and purple.  I got 'Duo' which has Cherry and Purple. 12 sf

Dianthus  'Rainbow Loveliness'

I wrote about these in a post on Fragrant Plants.  I saved seed from a mix of colors as well as white ones so I will probably plant the mix for cutting.  8 sf

Sunflower (Helianthus annus)
I got the pollenless 'Magic Orange'.  I really like orange sunflowers but I suspect this is more gold because it is a single stemmed sunflower and not a branching variety.  It seems like all the true orange ones are branching but hope springs eternal.  12 sf

Dahlia 'Appleblossom'

Dahlias
I am growing a couple dahlias for cut flowers.  The one pictured below is a collarette called 'Appleblossom'.  Most collarettes do not cut well but this one does. 8 sf

Beebalm (Monarda didyma)
Last year there was still monarda in the field where I used to grow flowers and I hope to grab some starts from there early in the spring.  I used to have 'SummerWine' and 'Jacob Cline'.  'Jacob Cline' is pute red and they are blooming around the 4th of July.  I used to combine them with blue delphiniums and whatever white flowers I had to make red white and blue bouquets.  I always thought the monarda looked like fireworks.8sf

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
This is a native plant which grows fine outside a swamp but does appreciate some water.  8 sf

Annual dianthus (Dianthus caryophyllus)
These are the annual version

Fragrant Flowers for 2014

In addition to the sweet peas, I will be growing a number of other flowers for fragrance.  Almost all of them are white.  White flowers are known for evening fragrance and that is when most of these at at their best.  You can get seds for all these from Select Seeds.  Here is what I will be growing:

Evening Stock (Matthiola incana)
These smell out of this world.  The flowers are nothing showy.  They close during the day and have no noticeable smell.  At night they emit a powerful scent a bit like lilies but lacking that heaviness that lilies have if you get too much of it.  These like to be direct sown but I had good luck last year starting them ahead and transplanting them when they were only a few weeks old.  Evening stock is cold hardy and will self sow after the first year.  I like to plant them outside the bedroom window where I can smell them at night.

Petunia (Petunia x hybrida) 'Rainmaster'
Petunias are usually grown as bedding plants but the older varieties smell exceptional at night, especially the white and purple varieties.  'Rainmaster' (it's named for not turning to mush after a rain)  is one of these older varieties.  Select Seeds says it dates from 1823.

Angel's Trumpet (Datura inoxia) 'Evening Fragrance'
These self seed and you see them all over the place.  The flowers smell sweet at night but the leaves smell unpleasant if you brush against them, "similar to rancid peanut butter" says Wikipedia.  The seed pods look like prickly grenades.  All parts of the plant are toxic.

Tobacco (Nicotiana alata) 'Jasmine'
Nicotiana are known for their sweet evening fragrance.  This is less true of the shorter bedding varieties that you now see at the Farmer's Market.  If you want them for fragrance, look for seed packets that say they smell good.  They are easy to start from seed, and self sow.  Most of the fragrant ones partially close during the day.

Fringed Pink (Dianthus hybrida)  'Rainbow Loveliness'
These are highly fringed pinks with a sweet, hard to describe scent.  Unlike other dianthus they do not smell like cloves.  Around my house we call the fragrance "fabric softener" though I wouldn't say they really smell like that.  They are perennial but bloom the first year from seed with an early start.

Last year I saved seeds from some white flowering plants.  I expect these seeds to yield at least 50% white plants this year.  If I have the discipline to rogue out the non-white flowers, the seeds I collect this year should yield almost 100% white flowers next year.

Heliotrope  (Heliotrope arborescens)
Heliotrope has a confectionary smell like almond and vanilla.  One common name is Cherry Pie Plant.  I have had mixed luck growing heliotrope from seed.  It smells nice but after smelling a white one atHidden Lake Gardens, I decided to spring for 3 white heliotrope plants from Select Seeds.  The one at Hidden Lake Gardens smelled far stronger than anything I have ever grown from seed.  I later read that the white is sterile and you can't grow it from seed.  Will let you know what how they turn out.

Stuff Growing Around the Yard
Because I have been living in the same place for more than 10 years I have a number of other fragrant perennials and shrubs.  Most of these make nice cut flowers:

Korean Spice Viburnum  (Viburnum carlesii)
These smell intensely of clove.  There is a hybrid called 'Mohawk' which also smells great.

Mockorange (Philadelphus coronarius) 'Innocence' 
I picked this up as a tiny plant many years ago.  I really like the smell of mockorange but have read that some people do not like it.  'Innocence' had variegated leaves and very strong scent.  Mockorange is not known for making a pretty shrub.  Each year it looks more and more gawky and ungainly.  I read somewhere that it should be cut back severely after flowering since it flowers on year old wood.  I did this last year and the shrub re-grew a large number of new stems which should flower this year.  If it works, than severe pruning is the answer because even if it smells great for a couple weeks, it has to look presentable for the other 50 weeks or what's the point?

Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) 'Mme Lemoine' 
This is a white double lilac.  Like all lilacs, it smells terrific.  The double flowers make it showier for cutting though I can't say it smells any better than any other lilac.

Grenadin Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus)
Last year I bought 6 Grenadin dianthus from Coleman's.  These are biennial or short lived perennials so they need to be replaced each year.  I use them mostly for cutting.

Peonies
I planted a 25 foot double row of peonies at my house when I was growing cut flowers.  Some peonies, like 'Festiva Maxima' smell very nice.  A number of other ones smell vaguely unpleasant.  I have heard them described as smelling like pollen.  Some people call this kind of fragrance a "nose twister".  Other examples include marigolds, feverfew and Sweet Annie.

2014 Edibles

I've been posting things about flowers because I am excited about growing flowers this year for the first time since closing my cut flower business 30 months ago.  For the growing seasons in 2012 and 2013 I could not grow flowers without feeling like it was "work", so I am really grateful to be excited about growing them again.  I just grew vegetables and perennial fruit crops in 2012 and 2013.  I still plan on growing vegetables this year but not as many as I did last year. 

Where
I have two gardens in Ypsilanti but neither is at a Project Grow site.  I grew my cut flowers on about a half acre of land I rented from Dawn Farm.  When I closed the business I fenced in about 1/10 of that space (twelve 100 square foot beds) and continue to rent that.  I also have a fenced 20 x 40 square foot garden at at my home. 

What
The Dawn Farm garden is about half edible perennials - 100sf of blueberry plants, 200sf of raspberries, 100sf of strawberries, 50df of asparagus, and 100sf holding two grape vines.  This year I am going to plant 200 square feet of flowers for cutting and the other 400 square feet will be sweet corn, collards, pimentos, bush beans and ground cherries.  At home I will be growing carrots, parsley root, tomatoes, melons plus sweet peas and a few other flowers.  In addition I will be putting about 8 or 9 blueberry plants.  Blueberries are have grown very slowly for me at Dawn Farm but they seemed to take off last year.  It was their 5th year, which seems glacially slow to me, but they are great so I was encouraged to try some more at home. 

Seeds I Ordered from Fedco
Sweet Corn

• Spring Treat
• Silver Queen 
• Augusta

These have staggered maturities and I each one gets 1/3 of a 100 sf bed.  It is an extravagant use of space but you really need that for corn. 

Carrots

• Scarlet Nantes
• Mokum
• Nelson
• YaYa
• Yellowstone

Bush Bean

• Provider

Pole Bean

• Fortex

Tomatoes

• Black Cherry (saved from tomatoes last year)
• Aunt Ruby's German Green (saved from tomatoes last year)
• Sun Gold

Melons

• Halona
• Sensation

I will get some others from the Project Grow plant sale but not sure which ones yet

I also have seeds left over from previous years for:

• Sweet pimento
• Vates collards
• Parsley root

What Got Squeezed Out

To make room for the flowers I will not be growing some things I grew the last couple years. These include cabbage, onions and parsnips.  It is fun to grow all three, and I am sure the cabbage and parsnips taste better than the ones from the store, but I had to give up something and these were the bottom of the list.  

2014 Sweet Peas

Starting Lisianthus From Seed

When I first started growing cut flowers, I ordered lisianthus plugs (small plants) because the plants need to be started in January and February to have them flowering in August and September. I had read they were difficult to grow from seed but after a couple years I thought I'd give it a try since seeds were much more affordable and I knew I needed to start them really early.


It turns out that lisianthus are not difficult to start from seed under lights. The seedlings are tiny and grow very slowly but nothing complicated is involved. Because they grow so slowly, lisianthus plants are really expensive. They are also a terrific cut flower, so seed is the way to go if you want to save money and enjoy getting the garden season started indoors in January or February.


Lisianthus take about 6 months to flower from the time the seed is planted. Seed planted in early January will bloom in July and ones started in February will bloom in August. You may be able to plant them in March and have them bloom in September, but their development slows with colder weather, so January and February are safer.

Lisianthus with zinnias, statice and gomphrena

Lights for Seed Starting
I have another post here about how to start seeds under lights. I use plug trays (you can buy them at Johnny's) for lisianthus rather than liners because the seedlings are so tiny they don't need to be transplanted for at least a couple months.


Varieties
Lisianthus have been bred to be short 6-8” bedding types or taller 1-2 foot varieties for cutting. The taller varieties will often say they reach 3 feet or more but they don't get that tall in a single season here in zone 5.


Choose the variety of seed depending on whether you want them for bedding or cutting. I have only grown the tall varieties for cutting. Some to look for are:

• Cinderella – a double lisianthus that comes in blue, ivory, lime, pink and yellow. To me, the yellow is off-white rather than yellow like a sunflower. Blue is a medium purple blue. Lime is a slightly greenish white. The pink is a good medium pink that does not look red or coral.
  
• Twinkle – a single lisianthus but available in a deep blue/purple color that is not available in any other lisianthus.
  
• Echo – Echo is an older variety that comes in a wide selection of colors and many picotee types. Picotees are white with color on the last ¼ inch of the petal.
  

Pelleted Seed
Because lisianthus seed is fine as dust, you want to be sure the seed is pelleted. The packet or catalog description will say it is pelleted if it is. Pelleted seed comes in plastic vial inside the seed packet. Each tiny seed has been placed in a pellet about the size of the head of a pin. The pellet dissolves on contact with water, so be sure your hands are dry when you touch them.

Pelleted lisianthus seed

Obtaining Seed
Lisianthus seed is available from many mail order companies including Johnny's, Pinetree Garden Seeds and many others. You can probably also find it at any good seed supplier like Downtown Home and Garden.


Sowing the seed
I have always grown lisianthus the same way. I am sure other ways work but this is the one I know and trust.


Materials

• A good soil-less seed starting mix.
  
• A plug flat or a 72 cell per flat liner.
  
• A flat or other container to hold water
  
• A flat to hold the liner trays or plug flat
  
• A clear plastic humidity dome. These domes fit over a full flat.
  
• Spray bottle
  

1. Fill the number of plug or liner cells you need.
   
2. Put about an inch of water in the water tray and set the soil containers in the water. After a few hours they will absorb the water so the grow mix on the surface is moist. Remove the containers from the water and let them drain in the sink for a few minutes.
   
3. Sow the seed on the surface of the grow mix. Do not cover the seeds - they need light to germinate. Because the seed is pelleted, you can sow one seed per cell.
   
4. After sowing the seed, spray the pellets and soil surface with water. Part or all of the pellet may dissolve but don't worry if part of the pellet is still there.
   
5. Put the seed containers in their flat, cover the flat with the humidity dome and place under the lights. The lights should be just over the humidity done but not touching it.
   

Get in the habit of checking on the flat every day. The seeds will sprout in about 10 days. The seedlings are very, very small, about the size of the head of a pin at the most. You may need to re-moisten the surface of the soil mix from time to time with the spray bottle. It is fine to spray the seedlings. Sometimes part of the undissolved pellet will be on one of the first leaves and spraying will dissolve it.


About a 4 weeks after you start the seedlings they might be as large as 1/4 inch across. Prop up the corner of the humidity dome for a day to give the seedlings a chance to adapt to drier air and then remove it. After removing the humidity dome, check the moisture in the soil mix every day. If only one or two cells are drying out, you can moisten them with the spray bottle. If most of the cells are drying out, you can bottom water all of them by placing the plug flats or liners in an inch of water.

Lisiathus in a 200 plug tray

Algae or moss may grow on the soil mix surface. It won't harm anything but you can rub it away after the seedlings are up if you want.


Transplanting to Larger Containers
Although they grow slowly, if started in plugs your lisianthus will need to be bumped up into small pots or larger liners eventually. When the roots are showing through the bottom of the plug, check to see if it is time to transplant . You can use the end of a pencil to push on the plug from the bottom. If the roots are reaching the outside of the plug, it is time to transplant. If started in liners you will be able to wait quite a while before transplanting.


Hardening Off
Lisianthus can tolerate cold weather. They are perennial in zones 7 or 8 and can survive winters hereif grown in a hoophouse and protected.
Before going from under the lights to their final locations in the garden, your lisianthus should be hardened off, This can be done as soon as there is mild daytime weather. If you have a cold frame you can put them in it when the nights will not be freezing and they will be fine. Once they have acclimated to cooler weather, they can tolerate frosts easily if protected by a cold frame. If you don't have a cold frame, move the plants in and out of the house during the day to get them used to bright sunlight and winds, but bring them inside at night if frost threatens.


Planting Outside

I am always paranoid about planting lisianthus outside too early because they take so long to grow that I don't want to risk losing them. If you are planting them in your yard, you can cover them up if it is going to get really cold. In that case it is probably fine to plant them outside in early May. If you can't cover them up in an emergency, mid-May is perhaps safer.

Starting Seeds Under Lights

After poring over catalogs all through January I usually find I want a greenhouse by February so I can get an early start with all the seeds I've ordered. Growing plants from seed at home is not for everyone. The plant selection at area nurseries and the farmer’s market has steadily improved in the past few years and you can now find unusual tomatoes and peppers at Project Grow's plant sale. It is often easier to just purchase healthy greenhouse grown plants from area growers and forget it.

Still, some people prefer to start things at home because they can’t find certain varieties, or they just enjoy starting plants from seed. For me, there is something special about any plant, from a primrose to a tomato, that I started from a seed.

My first attempt at starting plants from seed was disappointing. The seeds started readily enough but then grew tall and spindly, leaning toward the window. Some seedlings grew fuzzy fungus around their bases and keeled over before they were even two inches high. By the time I placed the seedlings outside the first breeze flattened the few top-heavy survivors.

If you have had failures like these, or been afraid to try because you've feared these kind of results, take heart, because you can learn from my mistakes. I have since successfully started everything from strawberries to leeks and dozens of kind of flowers from seed under lights. I’m sure there are other, better ways to proceed but this is what has worked well for me.

Soil
It is important that whatever you use be light, well-drained, moisture retentive and sterile. Unsterile soil harbors nasty fungal diseases and also weed seeds which make it difficult to recognize your seedlings. Rather than bake soil in the oven (it stinks to high heaven) I find it easier to use commercial seed starting mixes like Jiffy-Mix or Hoffman’s. You can also mix your own using peat moss, perlite and vermiculite.


Containers
You can use clay pots or plastic food containers or anything you have but it must have drainage holes. If the containers previously contained plants you must wash them (the paranoid say with bleach) to avoid the risk of disease. I usually find it easier to go the ecologically unsound route and buy sheets of plastic six or 4 packs, or liners. You can buy a whole sheet of these (12 six packs, 72 cells per sheet, 12 four packs, 48 cells per sheet) for a couple dollars. This will also tend to help you pack the most seedlings per square inch of indoor growing space. Liners can be purchased locally at Downtown Home and Garden or online.


Light
I've never lived anywhere that had nice sunny windows, and Michigan has no sun in February anyway,
so I use artificial lights. You don’t need to do anything fancy here. I use “shop light” fluorescent fixtures and the cheapest available bulbs - cool white 40 watt. You can get these at Home Depot or Lowe's. Newer fixtures come with thinner 34 watt bulbs to save energy. However, you want to maximize the light output, so you want 40 watt bulbs.


You want to mount the fixture on light- weight chains so you can raise it easily as the seedlings grow. The light should only be about two or three inches from the tops of the plants. I know this seems really close but remember that most plants want full sun and fluorescent tubes are very dim by comparison.


Fluorescent bulbs put out significantly less light as they age, so if you decide to borrow a fixture out of
the laundry room or garage, you may want to replace the bulbs. If used only for starting plants, the bulbs should be replaced every few years.

The lights should be operated about 16 hours a day. I use a grounded (3 prong) timer to turn them on and off. On the other hand, my father, who figures that if 16 hours of light is good, then 24 should be better, starts seeds under fluorescent lights that are never turned off and has fine results.


Sowing the seeds
Fill the containers with grow mix and moisten it. You want the mix moist but not sodden. I find it easiest to bottom water the container and let it absorb the water and then sow the seeds. Fine seed that needs to be surface sown can be moistened after sowing with a spray bottle. Under the controlled conditions that we are creating the germination rate will be much higher than when sowing outside so don’t over sow.


Temperature and humidity
Seedlings usually sprout best with warmer temperatures and high humidity. I have had best luck using clear plastic domes that fit over a single flat. (also available at Downtown Home and Garden). They are easy to take on and off and last for years. Follow packet directions, but most seeds will sprout nicely at around 70 degrees. I usually set the flat under the lights immediately so that the seedlings will be exposed to light as soon as they emerge.


After the seeds sprout and have true leaves, prop the dome open for a day or two to accustom the plants
to less humidity before removing the dome.


Watering and fertilizing
Plants should not be fertilized until they have at least two sets of true leaves. Fish emulsion diluted to half or a third strength works well. You may also be able to find other organic fertilizers which don't smell quite so bad.


Hardening Off
At least a week before the plants are to be planted outside they need to be accustomed to outdoor conditions. This is called hardening off. If you don’t have a cold frame, choose a mild day when it is not blazing hot or pouring rain, and leave the plants outside for an afternoon. An overcast day provides less of a shock. Each day, increase the amount of time they are outside. This will give the plants time to acclimate to outdoor conditions before being set out in the garden. I have two small cold frames and try to get the plants outside as soon as there are warm days. At first, wind is as much a danger than anything else and a cold frame really helps.