Sunflowers are a must-have for my garden every single year. For years now, without fail, I’ve planted sunflowers that tower over all of my plants and produce large, beautiful flowers. It’s not just their beauty that compels me to add them to my garden. They’re very good for local pollinators, providing an excellent food source for them, and their seeds are easy to store. One of my favorite varieties are chocolate cherry sunflowers.
Buy Chocolate Cherry Sunflower Seeds
If you picture a sunflower, you probably see large, yellow and orange sun-like flowers. But sunflowers come in lots of different colors, including a deep chocolate cherry color.
What are chocolate cherry sunflowers?
Fast facts about chocolate cherry sunflowers:
- Latin name: Helianthus
- Native to: North America
- Invasiveness: No
- Tenderness: Annual
- Sun: Full sun
- Water: 1 inch per week
- Soil: Slightly acidic to somewhat alkaline soil (pH 6.0 to 7.5)
- Hardiness zone: Zones 4 through 9
- When to plant: Spring, after final frost
- Spacing: 12″
- Plant height: 6-7′
- Bloom period: Summer through fall
- Time to maturity: 65 days
- Container friendly: No
- Fertilizer: Generally not needed
- Toxicity: Seeds are edible for humans, plants are non-toxic to pets
- Deer resistant: No
- Pest resistant: No
Chocolate cherry sunflowers are an awesome, native plant for gardeners living in North American planting zones 4-9. These annuals are not considered invasive even outside of their range and require full sun and an inch of water per week. When planting seedlings, plant 3 inches apart and thin to 12 inches apart once better established.
Your chocolate cherry sunflowers will grow to a whopping 6-7 feet tall and produce beautiful burgundy-colored flowers. It takes about 65 days for the plants to mature to their full height and will produce long-lasting flowers beginning in summer and continuing into fall. Once the plants have run their course, the seeds are edible for humans. Sunflowers are not known to be deer or pest resistant.
Chocolate cherry sunflowers are an excellent addition to your garden if you want to infuse a darker, burgundy color amidst the other flowers you’ve planted. They are a tall variety of sunflower, likely growing to be taller than the average person. They are ideal for the borders of gardens, where they don’t be in the way of other plants.
How to grow chocolate cherry sunflowers
Chocolate cherry sunflowers can be directly seeded into the ground after the last danger of frost or transplanted when the danger of frost has passed.
General planting information:
- Planting depth: 1/2 inch
- Plant spacing: 12 inches
- Row spacing: 2 feet
- Watering: Damp soil, not soggy
- Days to maturity: 65
- Flowering period: Summer through fall
- Seed harvesting: After flowers die back
When to harvest sunflower seeds
Harvesting sunflower seeds is an easy and straightforward process. Your sunflowers will flower for about 4 weeks and then begin to die back. Once the flowers have begun to die, the seeds can be harvested. Gently scoop the seeds from the flower and store in a cool dry place. These seeds can be used to propagate new sunflowers next year.
