On Sunday (the 1st) I was given some sunflower plants by a gardening acquaintance. Her sunflowers self-seeded and she needed to thin them. She said that four of them were a white-flowering one and the fifth was the cultivar “Mammoth”. There are two common cultivars with “Mammoth” in the title, “Mammoth Russian” and “Mammoth Grey Stripe”; I will just have to wait and see which one it is. I already knew they’d have to be dealt with that morning, but when I got the bag home I realized most of them were barerooted – no wonder they’d started drooping! She’d suggested potting them up and keeping them in the shade for a little while, but I wasn’t sure if that was the best plan, since they were used to being in the sun in her garden, and since sunflowers love sun so much that it’s even in their common name. I planted them and they drooped further, till they were resting their tops on the ground or a nearby plant. They did not appear to actually be dead, but I was really concerned that they wouldn’t make it. Transplanting sunflowers is already a tricky proposition; I’ve even had mixed success trying it with organically grown farmers’ market ones who were sold in peat pots to lessen the shock of transplant. So two or three times a day, I hand-watered them with a watering can with a sprinkle nozzle attachment and generally checked on their well-being. I was amazed to notice after a day or two that they had started to grow new leaves. By yesterday, they had partially uprighted themselves, and the new leaves were getting bigger and more robust. Here are a couple shots of one of the plants:
By last evening, they had further uprighted themselves, and the stems seemed to be gaining strength by the hour. It really looks like they might make it!
