Deadheading Sunflowers?

Afternoon all,

I'm dead chuffed with my sunflowers this year - virtually none destroyed by slugs, and some of them now standing at over 10' tall. A product of this hot, dry summer no doubt.

One question that internet searching is not really resolving for me one way or the other - is it worthwhile deadheading them to try to promote new flower heads forming lower down?

Mine are flowering beautifully but the heads tend only to last a few days before withering. There are lots of side shoots sprouting up the length of the stems, and so I wondered if dead-heading the tops might promote flowering from these shoots?

I understand the benefit of leaving dead heads on for finches etc, and plan to do that as the plants start to exhaust themselves, but it seems a bit early yet to be needing to give too much thought to helping birds fatten up for winter.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Hiya Andy, I`ve never actually grown sunflowers, but I think that the answer may be to cut down some, and leave others. That way the plants will tell you which is the best way to go in the future. Your ultimate findings will be interesting to know about.

 

When I grow them I leave the seeds for the birds which to me is just as important as the flowers.

 

But, maybe Andy is trying to promote the growth of more flowers to give the birds more seed as the colder weather approaches, so that not deadheading them would possibly prove to be a false economy.

 

I understand that; I was just stating my reason for not deadheading.

 

Righto

 

Cutting sunflower heads for cut flowers of say 4 to 6 inches diameter early enough will normally produce lots of much smaller flowers for late season cutting branching from the main stem.

This doesn't produce more seeds for birds, just a second crop of smaller sized flowers for cutting.

 

Thanks @Scrungee, I think that is exactly the answer that Andy was hoping for, so it boils down to either flowers or food for the finches

 

If you plant extra sunflowers, there'll be enough seeds and flowers for everybody. They grow well planted through X cuts in mypex membrane in a maintenance free patch

 

No room for extras @Scrungee - unfortunately we have a small garden and the dozen or so sunflowers that I have this year is about as many as the space will take, without removing other plants, which I don't want to do.

Thanks for the tip about cutting - just the kind of advice I was looking for. I've decided to do that with some and leave others be as per @Tetters ' suggestion, so as to get lots of flowers but also plenty of seed for the birds.

Cheers.