Sunflowers, an annual, are one of the easiest plants to grow. The botanical
name for sunflowers is Helianthus, helios meaning sun and anthus
meaning flower. They are part of the asteraceae family and are native to
North America. They have a habit of turning their heads to face the sun,
usually facing east when their flowers open.
Although gardeners in general love to grow the tallest and biggest
sunflowers, there are many varieties that are beautiful and fit nicely into
almost any garden setting. Sunflowers can be grown in colors besides
yellow and gold. You can find seeds at your local garden center in bronze,
purple, orange, and red, and in varying heights. At one seed catalog I
visited there were 42 sunflower choices.
Farmers in the U.S. started growing sunflowers commercially after WWII
because of their many uses. The commercial crop consists of two types of
seeds; confection and oilseeds. The confection seeds are used in baked
goods, trail mixes, granola, and cereal. Oilseeds prod
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