Smiling sunflowers for National Children’s Gardening week!
Grow your own smiling sunflower!
Shopping list
- Pack of sunflower seeds
- Small plant pots
- Bamboo cane
- Garden string
- Multi-purpose compost
Instructions
- Fill your small pots with compost.
- Plant a seed in each pot and give it a watering. Put your pot onto a window sill and water it once the seed sprouts so the compost stays damp.
- As your sunflower grows, tie the stem of the sunflower loosely to the bamboo cane with your garden string to support your plants.
- Once the frosty weather is over (usually mid-May), dig a hole in your garden for your sunflower. Ideally dig it next to a wall or fence that gets lots of sun.
- Squeeze your sunflower and the compost it’s growing in out of your pot, and plant it in the hole you’ve dug. Put a bamboo cane next to your sunflower, and give your sunflower a good watering.
- As your sunflower grows, make sure you tie the stem to the bamboo cane loosely with garden string. Try tying it using a ‘figure-of-eight’ knot as this will reduce any rubbing on the stem.
- When your sunflower appears, gently tease out the seed heads to make a fantastic sunny smiling face.
- Send us a picture !