Today I came outside to find that the bottom few leaves on my sunflower have yellowed almost completely overnight. I do not beleive it is verticillium wilt...perhaps a nutrient defficiency? It has been quite humid recently. This plant has been fairly healthy so far and hopefully it will stay that way. It is "Big Smile" var.
Look at the picture below, anyone know what this is?
I don't know much about sunflowers, I have a few in the garden. But, from the picture it looks like there isn't much dirt in the pot. Perhaps it just needs more root space? Just a guess. Also, I think they are heavy feeders...or need a lot of water....
Kristie
Could be some sort of watering issue too, I would check the moisture level but if things feel OK now I wouldn't worry too much, the top leaves look healthy enough. They are pretty big and pretty fast growers, my guess is it would be happier if you planted it in the ground.
I agree with the others about the size of the pot and amount of earth you have it in, these have a large root system and for the flower size this will produce, put it into a large pot, add a stake/garden cane for support, tie the stem to this as it grows upwards, give it plenty light and feed once a week to give it the energy it requires for flowering, it has a large bud on it already, as for the yellow leaves, these could be the tiny leaves that came through the soil as the seed germinated, if so, then nip them off as they really serve no purpose to the plant now and just make it look unhealthy, when you do this, look the leaves over and check for desease/mould ect just to be sure all is OK, Good luck. WeeNel.
Thanks guys! I appreciate the input.
I used to grow large sunflowers, and loss of the lower leaves as the plant grows taller is part of its natural growth habit. You lose even more leaves as the seeds mature. I assume nutrients were being moved to where they were needed most. I'd suggest a substantially larger pot or planting it in a good (fertile) patch of ground outside.
I have some more of these in the ground, but I have run out of decent ground space... I was hoping to leave this guy potted... do you think that a 5 gallon bucket would be big enough perhaps?
Also... do you think these would respond well to a 12% organic nitrogen fertilizer (blood meal)? or would it inhibit flower growth? it specifically says "for roses, flowers, and shrubs" but I have heard some plants respond to high nitrogen levels by producing great foliage but with few flowers or small flowers.
I don't think it would inhibit flower growth, but not sure. I know nasturtium are like that, but sunflowers are heavy feeders. If nothing else, you could try an all around fertilizer that would provide all the nutrients instead of just nitrogen. Hopefully someone who knows more about fertilizer will weigh in(I've killed a FEW things with fertilizer already).
Kristie
What are the other numbers? A high middle number (phosphorus) will promote blooming, if your stuff has 12% nitrogen but no phosphorous then maybe don't use it, but if the P number is equal or greater than the N number then it's probably fine. I don't know anything about sunflowers specifically, this is more of a general comment.
This particular fertilizer is 12-0-0. It is actually derived from dried blood (probably cow/horse). I put it on a few of my sunflowers but not all of them, so we'll see how it goes.
I'd find something with some bone meal in it too for the phosphorous, that should be better for something that you want to bloom. Also if you have dogs, watch out for the organic fertilizers with blood and bone meal in them, dogs will go nuts over one (or both?) of those ingredients, my dog normally ignores the garden but one time I used something that had those two things in it and he was all of a sudden digging up the garden like crazy, trying to eat the fertilizer! So I stick with seaweed and fish emulsion now.
nope i've got no animals (except for the wild rabbits :P ). I beleive the blood meal will repel rabbits somewhat as well.
Plenty folks would have had that rabbit in the pot by now, but as far as the fish/blood and bone meal mix Ecrane, I never have a pob with any of my dogs, I always mixed it into the soil and mulched after I added it so maybe it was just deep enough, mind you my dogs were chow chows, not known for anything as energetic as digging up the garden they had a heard enough time finding the energy to bark, so not the best example, but that food really is a good all rounder and no artificial chemicals added so I prefere that to some of the others on the market, either that or dried chickem manure is also good but slower to get taken up by the plants, good as a long term feed over a season though. my grandkids get to make smilly faces on some of the sunflowers heads, you get a pair of tweezers and pick out the mouth nose and eyes from the center of the flowers and they look cute, the kids have fun and it dont harm the flowers either, good luck and happy gardening, WeeNel.
I'm still not sure why my dog went nuts for it, he never has any inclination to dig in the garden except for when I used it (and he went right for the spots I had put it, so I know that's what he was going for!) Then I read later somewhere else (probably on here somewhere) that other people had experienced the same thing. Glad your dog doesn't do that though, I wish mine didn't so I could use it for fertilizer, but I use seaweed and fish emulsion and compost tea instead since he doesn't like those. Honestly most of my garden is California and Australian natives which don't like a ton of fertilizer to begin with so it's really not a big deal, if I was trying to grow veggies and things like that I might care a little more.
your sunflower definitely needs a bigger pot. they grow tall 6-8' or more. it's not a black-eyed susan.
the bonemeal will attract possums. they dug up some peony roots last fall and winter where i put bonemeal in the hole. they drug the root about a foot away and dropped it. had little scratches on it.
not verticulum? wilt. whole plant would be brown.
upper leaves are probably stealing nutrients(nitrogen) from lower leaves to grow taller
but nitrogen depleted plant would be light green.
Its doing fairly well now... the flower has opened up. I had 4 more in the ground and rabbits have eaten two of them -_-
...and here she is!
