How to Protect Sunflowers

Protect Sunflowers

• 1

  Water around the root zones of the sunflowers, pouring diluted liquid fertilizer about 3 to 4 inches from each plant once per week. Read the fertilizer instructions as to how it should be diluted. Do this to properly feed small sunflowers.

• 2

  Dig small doughnut-shaped moats, measuring about 4 inches deep and about 18 inches around each sunflower. Pour diluted fertilizer into the moats once per week. Use this fertilizing method for larger sunflowers to keep them healthy.

• 3

  Push plant stakes into the ground by the stalks of the sunflowers. Use garden ties to secure the stalks to the plant stakes. This protects the stalks and keeps the sunflowers from tipping over on windy days. If needed, use a simple, tall plant trellises to help keep the stalks secure. Attach with garden ties.

• 4

  Spray the plants with an organophosphate or pyrethroid insecticide once at 10 percent bloom. Apply a second treatment around the perimeter of the sunflower field seven days later. This protects the sunflowers from damaging insects.

• 5

  Put mesh onion bags, loose burlap or paper bags over the sunflower heads once they are fully open and displaying seeds. This protects the heads of the flower from birds that enjoy feasting on the seeds.

• 6

  Cover each sunflower with plastic bird netting to protect the sunflowers from birds and the damaging effects of chipmunks and squirrels.

• 7

  Avoid over-crowding the sunflower population and over-fertilizing with nitrogen, as this leads to dense foliage that favors disease. The sunflowers need ample room for their roots to spread out in order to absorb enough water. If they are too crowded, the roots will be forced to grow down rather than out, and there may not be ample water further down into the soil. Over-fertilizing with a high-nitrogen fertilizer can cause the sunflowers to grow too tall, thus weakening the stems. A weakened stem leads to the disease "sunflower rust."

• 8

  Use pruning shears to prune a sunflower that has grown too large and is causing other sunflowers to bend or tip. If the sunflower grows to a height that causes it to tip over onto other sunflowers or push and lean into them, it may weaken their stems, which in turn could cause a domino effect of falling or bending sunflowers.

• 9

  Spray the sunflowers with a fungicide to treat potential diseases, such as rust damage.