Best Soil for Sunflowers
It is a beautiful scene to see sunflowers in bloom, especially during summer. The bright-yellow blooms are like smiles on stems to make summer days sunnier. Fortunately, growing sunflowers is quite easy as they are pest-resistant, fast-growing, and heat-tolerant.
You can use sunflower blooms to decorate your home, just leave them on their stalks for a beautiful garden, or harvest them for their seeds, which make for a tasty snack. If you plan to grow your own sunflowers, here are some tips on choosing the best soil.
Planting Sunflower Seeds
Although you can buy starter plants at a home improvement store or a nursery, you can also try growing sunflowers with seeds. Just sow the seeds directly into the soil. If you already have your preferred variety of sunflowers, buy the seeds. Then plant those seeds following these steps:
- Plant the seed after spring when the soil is at least 60˚F. The best time to plant is between March and May.
- Plant the seeds in the soil less than 1-inch deep and around 6-inches away from each other. Thin the seedlings when they reach 6-inches in height to leave the healthiest plants with 12-inches of spaces between them.
- For continuous blooms, keep your planting staggered. Sow a new row of seeds every 2 to 3 weeks. This is a process called succession planting that will give you continuous blooms until winter.
- It will take between 80 and 120 days for the sunflower seeds to grow from the time you plant the seed in the soil until the flowers bloom. This will depend on the variety too.
Top 5 Soil for Sunflowers
#1. Miracle-Gro Expand 'n Gro Concentrated Planting Mix
Miracle-Gro Expand 'n Gro Concentrated Planting Mix is a concentrated planting mix that's an excellent substitute for garden soil that you can use either in the ground or in pots or other containers. Adding water to the mix will allow the compressed plant food and coir to expand and supply the plant with food for up to 6 months. This planting mix can hold up to 50% more water compared to basic potting soil and create up to 90% more air. This will give your plant's root system all the room they need to grow and develop.
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#2. Espoma AP8 8-Quart Organic Potting Mix
Espoma AP8 8-Quart Organic Potting Mix is ideal for both outdoor and indoor plants. The mix comes enhanced with a Micro-Tone formula that saves water offering good retention of moisture to reduce drought stress. Using this potting soil will promote the growth of roots to grow bigger plants. The potting soil is also organic, which is important if you don't want synthetic substances and chemicals around your seedlings.
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#3. Organic Seed Starting Soil Potting Mix
Organic Seed Starting Soil Potting Mix is a professionally formulated soil potting mix with carefully screened forest gold and sphagnum peat plus some organic fertilizer. All these contribute to quicker root development. This is the perfect potting mix for optimum growth of general indoor potting, ornamentals, cuttings, and seedlings. It has a 5.5 pH level. This professional and organic seed starting soil mix is specially formulated for fast root development to grow more vigorous and healthier plants.
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#4. Miracle-Gro Potting Mix
Miracle-Gro Potting Mix will make your plants the center of attention in your neighborhood. It will provide the right ingredients for your plants to grow more beautiful and bigger too. The formulated mix will feed your plants for up to 6 months for more color and more blooms. You can use it for both outdoor and indoor plants. The potting mix is a complete in-ground soil suitable for different kinds of flowers and plants.
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#5. Dr. Earth Gold Premium Potting Soil
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Verdict
Sunflowers are an attractive breed that is very easy to grow. In fact, they are one of the easiest plants to grow because they thrive well in direct sunlight and they aren't choosy when it comes to soil. The most popular sunflowers are the giant varieties. They grow very tall and have bright yellow blooms. Now that you know the best soil products to grow your sunflowers, you can start planting these flowers in your garden.