There are a lot of great Hybrid sunflower varieties to choose from nowadays. Hybrid seeds will give you a more consistent uniform crop of plants but their downside is that the resulting seeds you harvest won’t necessarily give you plants that look like their parents for your next generation.
Earthwalker
The Earthwalker hybrid variety produces a variety of different coloured mutli-headed tall flowers. Colours range from a bright yellow to rich orange and deep red.
Colour: Yellow / Orange / Red
Height: 5′ – 7′
Flower Heads: 1 – 5
Giant Single
The Giant Single Sunflower is the typical tall sunflower you are used to seeing which has large single yellow blooms and produces the black and white striped seeds you would commonly recognise as sunflower seeds. These varieties are easy to find and great fun to grow to see how tall you can get them.
Colour: Yellow
Height: 6′ – 8′
Flower Heads: 1
Moulin Rouge
The Moulin Rouge is an F1 Hybrid that is a little bit different with multi-headed rich mahogany red petals and black centres.
Colour: Red
Height: 5′ – 7′
Flower Heads: 1 – 4
Key Lime Pie
From the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens collection, the Key Lime Pie sunflower has small clusters of cream petals with an unusual lime green centre and soft, shiny foliage.
Colour: Cream / Green
Height: 4′ – 5′
Heads: 1 – 4
Bicentenary
Developed by Thompson & Morgan’s plant breeders, the Sunflower Bicentenary was selected by the RHS to be included in their Bicentenary Plant Collection celebrating 200 years of the Royal Horticultural Society. They are quite unique with rich gold and bronze bi-colour flower heads with soft silver-green foliage.
Colour: Gold / Bronze
Height: 4′ – 5′
Heads: 1 – 4
Big Smile
Big Smile is a quick growing, extra dwarf variety with single bright golden flowers and black centres. An ideal variety for a pot or to edge a border. Flowers bloom within 2 months of sowing.
Colour: Golden Yellow
Height: 6″ – 12″
Heads: 1
Choco Sun
Choco Sun is probably one of the smallest dwarf varieties with multi-flowering bright yellow flowers and dark centres with dark green foliage. Choco Sun grows no taller than a foot in height so is perfect for growing in a pot.
Colour: Yellow
Height: 10″ – 12″
Heads: 1 – 4
Indian Blanket
Indian Blanket is a very unique tall variety with spectacular flowers whose petals are coloured with a rich red blush that fade through to lemon yellow tips. Many flowers have a fluffy inner ring of tiny petals around its central eye.
Colour: Red – Lemon Yellow
Height: 4′ – 6′
Heads: 1 – 4
Kong
The Kong Sunflower is an F1 Hybrid that is probably one of the tallest varieties you can grow. Kong is a fast growing giant sunflower that has sturdy stems that are strong enough to hold the large heads that can grow up to 40 inches in diameter.
Colour: Yellow
Height: 10′ – 14′
Heads: 1
Pastiche
The Pastiche sunflower is a beautiful variety with bi-colour and tri-colour petals with colours ranging from reds, yellows, bronze and maroon. The Royal Horticultural Society has given it its prestigious Award of Garden Merit.
Colour: Red / Yellow / Bronze / Maroon
Height: 4′ – 5′
Heads: 1 – 4
Hello,
I live in Flagstaff Arizona, elevation 7,000 feet. I am an avid vegetable/flower gardener in spite of our short growing season here. Gardening has always been a challenge here but can be done. I am wanting to venture into growing a few Sunflowers to collect and feed seed to my chickens. Most Sunflowers take too long to mature for my area. I am looking for something not so mammoth, excellent seed yield potential, good oil content, black seed, good stalk health. July & August is generally our monsoon’s which can produce gentle rains, winds, heavy down pours, hail or dry lightening. So, I’m looking for a Sunflower that will do well here. Can you help? In average I would say our growing season could be approximately 103-110 days. Depends upon the micro climate one lives in.
Thank You,
Melody
Thanks!
Melody
I’m not familiar with your area unfortunately but I’d probably go for one of the dwarf varieties, something like Choco Sun or Irish eyes if you can find them.
I’m in Prescott Valley and we grew Sunspot, Zohar, Velvet Queen, Italian White, Lemon Queen, Van Gogh mix, Dwarf Teddy Bear,and Autumn Beauty Sunflowers this year. I planted them June 1st for our wedding on August 27th and most were all ready spent by Mid August. I think any of these varieties will work for you. They all grew very quickly and produced seeds by mid August except for Sun Spot. Sunspot are dwarf, but they have huge heads (bigger than a dinner plate) and seem to be the last to go to seed. If you are interested in Seed Sharing, I’ve got a Face Book group called Seed Savers Exchange Group and I know we have at least one member in Flag who is an avid gardener and all of our members love to help other gardeners and share seeds. Cheers, E