Wednesday, August 15, 2007

MEXICAN SUNFLOWER

Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia roundifolia) is about the orangest flower I grow. I can't even think of another flower that has such a strong saturated orange colour. Every year I grow this annual from seed to add some late summer into fall flowers in the garden. They bloom until the first frost, require infrequent watering, butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy them, and make a wonderful cut flower. This hybrid is 'Goldfinger' and it has the boldest colour of all the hybrids available today.

8 comments:

LostRoses said...

Now that's orange, Bob! But what about the orange Oriental poppies that bloom in the spring? Are they 'orange-er' than that? The Mexican sunflower looks like a good one for our hot summer days too.

Bob said...

Lostroses, Tithonia is more orange, plus its a much better plant. It blooms for months and doesn't fall apart like oriental poppies. I love poppies but they always seem to be in full bloom and we then get a rain storm and they fall apart. Plus tithonia has beautiful rich green foliage that very velvety, almost as nice as lambs ear.
I always appreciate your comments.
Take care, BOB

Petunia's Gardener said...

Works for me. It's going on the 2008 list!

lisa said...

What's not to like about such a tough performer? And the name 'Goldfinger' reminds me of Austin Powers' "Goldmember"...tee hee! Now I MUST grow this plant!

On with the blather said...

I've been growing Mexican Sunflowers for several years and I love them. They're easy to grow and very low maintenance. Although, if there's one thing I don't like is that they are very invasive, so you have to keep up on keeping them corralled.

I stumbled on your blog and I love it. You've given me some great ideas for pairings of plants for my garden. I recently, well three years ago, moved to my current house. There were no flower beds at all and what "landscaping" there was was horrible, so I'm having to start from scratch. Lots of hard work done a little at a time but eventually it will all be done.

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Anonymous said...

help! my sunflowers are 10 feet tall withno blooms--i live in the LOng Island, NY area--started from seed--what went wrong? MEB