No flower can lift someone’s spirits like a sunflower. They are bright and cheery and as warm and inviting as the sweet summer sun. With brilliant yellow petals, also known as “rays” sunflowers have the unmistakable sun-like appearance that has made them a crowd favorite. Sunflowers come in a number of varieties, ranging from small to very large, have yellow petals to red. Sunflowers symbolize adoration.
Some Facts about sunflowers are:
- Sunflowers display a behavior called heliotropism. The flower buds and young blossoms will face east in the morning and follow the sun as the earth moves during the day. However, as the flowers get heavier during seed production, the stems will stiffen and the mature flower heads will generally remain facing east.
- Sunflowers in their cut form tend to be thirsty, so check the water level daily.
- The flowers not only look like the sun, they need a lot of it.
- Like potatoes, tomatoes, and corn, the cheerful plants didn’t originate in Europe. They were cultivated in North America.
- In the summer of 2014, Veteran green-thumb Hans-Peter Schiffer toppled the Guinness World Record for third year in a row for the tallest sunflower. The local fire brigade lent its help in measuring the sunflower, which required its own scaffold. The sunflower measured 30 ft 1 in.
