Content
- Sunflowers when and how to cut?
- Cut off blooming flowers
- Cutting sunflowers in autumn
- Cut off sunflowers for the vase
- Tips & Tricks
Sunflowers work well as cut flowers for the vase
Sunflowers when and how to cut?
Sunflowers need little care except for regular watering and fertilising. During the gardening season you do not have to cut the pretty summer flowers, unless you want to pick a nice bouquet for the living room.
Cut off blooming flowers
By cutting off the withered flowers, you can not stimulate growth in single-stemmed sunflowers. Therefore refrain from cutting and let the seeds ripen in the flower baskets.
This is especially useful if you want to harvest sunflower seeds for the next year or birdseed for the winter.
To protect the cores from the birds, you should pull permeable fabric over the flowers. Alternatively, the flowers can be dried in the house.
Cutting sunflowers in autumn
In the autumn, most gardeners cut off the sunflowers altogether, because the dried stems with the sadly drooping flower heads do not offer a nice sight.
Never tear the plant out completely, but leave the roots in the ground. They decompose there during the winter, thereby loosening the soil and enriching it with nutrients.
Therefore cut off the sunflowers just above the ground. With very thick and woody stems a knife is often not enough. Sometimes you have to reach for a saw to cut off the sunflowers.
Cut off sunflowers for the vase
If you want to cut off a pretty bouquet of sunflowers for the vase, choose only flowers that are not completely closed, but are not quite open yet.
The best time to cut the sunflower blossoms is the morning. Choose a day when it was not raining.
To keep the sunflowers in the vase for a long time, cut them down. Dip the stems in boiling water for a few seconds before placing them in the vase.
Tips & Tricks
As a bird lover, you should never cut off all the sunflower's blooms. A better opportunity to experience the feathered gardeners approaching and picking the seeds, there is hardly.