Last Updated: July 16, 2022

Nothing says summer like a garden full of Helianthus

lemon sunflower

A pale yellow sunflower variety called “Lemon”

I like sunflowers for their height, variety of color and ability to draw bees and birds, so I usually start a bunch of different ones in early spring and scatter them about the acre. Then, right as summer starts to get into full swing, we’re rewarded with big blooms popping out of the ground everywhere.

bi-color sunflower

Bi-color sunflower birds planted among some tomatoes

This year some of the scrub jays and mockingbirds did a little scattering for me, so I have a bunch of them in the strangest of places — in the middle of a tomato plant, under an orange tree, and scattered among the blackberries.

I also have what I call “the patch”, a typically dry area that once a year I toss a handful of black oil sunflower seeds and let them run wild. In the fall it’s so full of jays, woodpeckers, finches, mockingbirds, and others all chittering, squawking and tweeting at one another.

Sometimes the avian excitement is so great, it’s hard to hear anything else.

Here’s a small gallery of the sunflowers you might come across as you wander the Acre.

Earthwalker – multi-headed red/orange sunflower
Moulin Rouge red sunflower
Autumn Beauty bi-color sunflower birds planted among some tomatoes
The black oil sunflower patch – just for the wild birds
Sonja multi-branching sunflower
A pale yellow sunflower called “Lemon”
A young mammoth sunflower facing the sky
Russian Giant Gray Stripe Sunflower
Where to find the sunflowers in this post