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This story was printed from Oswego Schools, USD 504.
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This is the sunflower garden the last day of May.

Short to Tall

by Theresa Farris
July 14, 2009

The first month of summer is over and our K/1 sunflower garden has made amazing growth. Three summer storms with high winds and hail leaving their mark on our garden but it could not slow its growth. We now have the signs of our first pumpkin and the sunflowers have finally made their appearance. Our tallest sunflower measures 6 feet 4 ½ inches tall.

If you look carefully you can see the pumpkin plants peeking through the sunflowers.

Sunflower stems can grow as high as 8 to 12 feet tall within 6 months, and the flower head can reach 30 cm (11.8 in) in diameter with large edible seeds. Sunflower heads consist of 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers joined together by a receptacle base. The large petals around the edge of the sunflower head are individual ray flowers, which do not develop into seed. The florets inside the circular head are called disc florets, which mature in to what are traditionally called sunflower seeds, but are actually the fruit of the plant. The florets within the sunflower's cluster are arranged in a spiral pattern. Typically, there are 34 spirals in one direction and 55 in the other; on a very large sunflower there could be 89 in one direction and 144 in the other. This pattern produces the most efficient packing of seeds within the flower head.

This is our first sunflower that bloomed after the summer rain on July 2nd.

We will definitely be measuring the final size of our tallest sunflower plant, the diameter of the largest sunflower head and counting the number of seeds in the sunflower.
Check back before school starts to see more updated pictures of our K/1 garden progress.

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