Non-stop sun lovers

Get perennial and annual sunflowers in the ground now to brighten your garden in late summer and provide a valuable food source for wildlife, says Hazel Sillver

- Hazel Sillver

SUNFLOWERS (Helianthus) are one of the happiest plants: their daisy-shaped flowers in fiery colours fill the garden with cheer from July to September.

Most people are familiar with annual sunflowers, and tend either to love or loathe them. But there are also perennial forms, which are often mistaken for rudbeckias, and provide glorious golden color at the back of the border in late summer and early autumn. Both provide nectar for pollinators, and the annuals’ seed is eaten by birds.

Excellent border plants

Perennial sunflowers take pride of place at Great Dixter in East Sussex, which is famous for its fabulous use of colour. “We use them in the borders, alongside heleniums, kniphofia and other perennials,” says head gardener Fergus Garrett. “The pale-yellow ‘Lemon Queen’ is a very good doer. We also grow the beautiful ‘Capenoch Star’ and ‘O Sole Mio’, which is pale ice-cream yellow.”

These perennial forms may lack the lovable eccentricity of the annuals, but they are excellent border plants, producing an abundance of charming yellow flowers over a long period.

Because their cousins, the annuals,resemble a child’s drawing of the sun atop colossal stems, they usually induce a love or hate reaction. Some people dislike the brash yellow colour, others can’t stomach the coarse foliage or the height, and many deem them infantile. But for those of us who love them, they are smiling giants, and there are many sophisticated cultivars to grow in an attempt to convert ardent sunflower haters, such as the dark, velvety ‘Claret’ and dusky-pink ProCut Plum.