Sunflower Competition 2014 WINNER!

The sunflowers have all grown to their highest peak so it is time to announce this year”s winner of the Sowandso Sunflower competition 2014.

The Perfect Spot

We all started out enthusiastically enough. I was sure that I had found the perfect spot, on the south west side of the house. But then I started sowing rather late. I planted out very small seedlings while I was getting reports of others who already had decent plants going. The spot I had chosen was a bit out of my regular way and the sunflowers were sometimes forgotten during watering. To cut a long story short, I am not even going to mention the size of my sunflowers, they are so embarrassingly small  that they really do not qualify to even enter this competition.

Side Shoots

So on to my partner in crime Bridget. It turned out that this sunflower growing season is a bit different for her as well. Instead of having long stalks with one big sunflower head at the top, her sunflowers produced a flower and then decided on a side shoot going higher with another flower and so on. They finally reached their peak and her highest sunflower reached 2.15 cm!!!

Almost

One of the earliest contestants of this year, Old school Bill from @billsgarden sent us photos of his seedlings while mine were still germinating. I was sure he was heading in the “winning” direction with his sunflowers, only to have disaster strike. His sunflower got to a reasonable 1.90 cm but was then attacked by some kind of bug grew no further.

Second place

Johanna Smith @thegardenbird made growing sunflowers a family event. Her boys sowed and cared for the sunflowers and they did an excellent job! Look at them looking all proud and happy. Their sunflower reached 219 cm!!!!

And the winner is….

The big question however was; Would last year’s winner Michael Dahl be able to beat his own record??? He did! he grew an even larger sunflower; 116 inches, 9 ft 8 inches, or 294.64 cm. That is 9.5 inches taller than last year!! So congrats to Michael on retaining his title. For two years in a row he has grown the largest sunflower in the Sowandso Sunflower Competition.

So all you sunflower growers out there, I ask, do you reckon that you can beat Michael and grow an even taller sunflower? If so you MUST enter next year’s competition. I am sure Bridget and I are going to pay extra attention to our sunflowers and will come up with a strategy to bring the title back home!