Lemon Queen Sunflower (Helianthus)

This heirloom sunflower is rockin’ the sunflower garden

Lemon queen sunflower rockin’ the summertime

Early this spring I whacked down some out of control blackberries growing along the southwest corner of The Acre creating a gaping hole with a view of the road.

To cover the hole I decided to plant a bunch of tall sunflowers so there’d be something to look at (from both sides) while the blackberries grew back in.

I planted half a dozen varieties, some with single heads, others bushy multi-headed sunflowers. One of the showiest has been Lemon Queen, a tall, multi-headed variety with pale, lemon yellow blossoms.

I’m 6 ft tall. This sunflower is a lot taller

The catalog said they grew 6-7 feet with multi-branching stalks and pale yellow flowers with a chocolate brown center. Other than these guys being at least 8 feet tall, the description was pretty accurate.

What the description didn’t say is that this flower is very long-lived and blooms pretty much bottom-to-top like a big, shaggy sunflower bush.

The Lemon Queen sunflower in this photo started blooming along with a couple of other varieties about three weeks ago. The flowers on the others have already started to die back, but this one looks a long way from calling it a summer.

Lemon Queen Sunflower in full bloom in the garden

Anyway, it’s a great variety. Probably the best $1.75 I’ve spent on flowers in a long while.