Spencerville, OH (Zone 6a) | August 2015 | positive
This summer was my first attempt at growing sunflowers, and decided to go with Chianti, among others like lemon Queens and mammoths. The ...Read Moreplanting process was pretty simple. I started about 20 of these in peat pots to keep the animals off them since I live in a country area full of rabbits and chipmunks. I picked an area in my yard and rotor tilled the grass up to plant these in. After the plants got about 4-6 inches high, I put them in the ground and away they went. No fertilizer or anything added, just dirt in my yard. Man, these babies took off like crazy, some even getting close to my mammoth sunflower heights around 7-9 foot high. Took a little while to bloom but man, when they did, they just keep blooming over and over. The stalk are nice and firm with lots of stems and blooms coming off each plant.
The colors are kind of varied though, with some coming out almost blackish red like a dark red wine, and some coming out with a lighter color red on the front, and then red and yellow striped on the back. Not that I'm complaining because there's such a unique variety of color patterns, it's like there's always something new to look at.
I've found the gold finches around here love the seeds on the heads as many of the seeds are missing.
All in all, I'm more than happy with these and will definitely plant them again in the future.
I grew Chianti with several other sunflowers, and Chianti was tied with one other as my least favorite. The color was pretty, but only ha...Read Mored a few branches,the foliage was poor, and it just looked weak next to the other fuller, more productive ones. Hardly any buds, compared to the others -which probably made it look worse. I love sunflowers, but should've read reviews prior to planting!
I absolutely love this plant, but I planted a whole packet of seed and not one plant grew! Granted it is VERY poor, very hard soil where...Read More it was planted. I'll compost and try again next year!
I grew Chianti last year with pitiful results. Only two weak little plants from a whole packet of seed, and only one decent, if small flo...Read Morewer. The other flowers were so deformed and fleshy they could barely open unfortuntely. Multiple flowers along each main stem, on very short little laterals.
I grew alot of other sunflowers very successfully, so maybe it was a bad batch of seed. The one flower was a great colour though, so I will include a picture of it. Looking very alone, its almost hard to spot it!
I am trying my luck with Moulin Rouge this season.
I have started these sunflowers direct by seed for the past two years with wonderful success. The stems were strong, multi-stemmed. Alt...Read Morehough many of the multi-stems are very short making it difficult to use many of them for cutting. I entered this sunflower at the county fair both years and received blue ribbons both times. Visitors have always made positive comments about them.
Dark 3 to 5 inch Flowers Multi-Sunflower on 4 to 5 foot Plants.
The colour is nice but I liked Moulin Rouge better. This o...Read Morene produced smaller flowers on weaker stems and had weaker growth and not as heavy a brancher as Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge also flowered a month earlier and kept on flowering as long as Chianti even though Chianti took an extra month to start flowering. Moulin Rouge also seemed to last a day or two longer as a cut flower than Chianti. All in all it is a nice sunflower that wasnt terrible but I believe Moulin Rouge to be a much better choice and will grow more Moulin Rouge next year and no Chianti.
A most beautiful dark selection of this wonderful annual. Some of my flowers were almost black. I intend to plant a lot more this comin...Read Moreg summer to use as cut flowers.
This summer was my first attempt at growing sunflowers, and decided to go with Chianti, among others like lemon Queens and mammoths. The ...Read More
These sunflowers require fertilizer or they will only put out a few flowers..
In one half of the garden they were putting...Read More
I grew Chianti with several other sunflowers, and Chianti was tied with one other as my least favorite. The color was pretty, but only ha...Read More
I absolutely love this plant, but I planted a whole packet of seed and not one plant grew! Granted it is VERY poor, very hard soil where...Read More
I grew Chianti last year with pitiful results. Only two weak little plants from a whole packet of seed, and only one decent, if small flo...Read More
I have started these sunflowers direct by seed for the past two years with wonderful success. The stems were strong, multi-stemmed. Alt...Read More
Dark 3 to 5 inch Flowers Multi-Sunflower on 4 to 5 foot Plants.
The colour is nice but I liked Moulin Rouge better. This o...Read More
A most beautiful dark selection of this wonderful annual. Some of my flowers were almost black. I intend to plant a lot more this comin...Read More