Sunflowers

By Cherie Luke 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