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How to Plant a Sunflower House

06/12/2014 By Kathleen 8 Comments

How to Plant a Sunflower House
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Remember our Plans for a Sunflower House?  Well, we finally got it planted.  And just in the nick of time!

Sunday nights are Family Night at our house.  Sunday night, May 25th, we’d planned to celebrate a special Family Night in honor of our final weekend as a family of four.  We’d been looking forward to planting our Sunflower House and decided to make it that night’s special Family Night activity.

How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead

Baby Brother was due to arrive via C-section on Tuesday morning, May 27th, but he came early.  I went into labor just hours after completing the Sunflower House on Sunday night.  Whew!How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead

We followed the instructions from this fun book: Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy.  (See more about that here: Planning Our Sunflower House.)

How to Plant a Sunflower House 

What We Used: Materials

  • Sunflower seeds: Tall–Black Russian, Medium–Velvet Queen and Short–Music Box
  • Heavenly Blue morning glory seeds
  • Compost
  • Mulch
  • Rice flour
  • Paper cups
  • Stakes
  • Twine
How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
Just hours before going into labor, I served as Director and Photographer.

What We Used: Tools

  • Shovels
  • Rakes
  • Trowels
  • Buckets
  • Wheel barrow
  • Measuring tape
  • Small cups (for flour & seeds)
  • Watering cans

What We Did

  1. (First, we ordered our seeds.)How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  2. Then we picked a spot that gets 6 or more hours of sun each day.How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  3. Next, we dug a 6 x 9 narrow trench.  (Notice how I use the term “we” loosely.) 🙂How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead

    How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
    Measuring the trench and adding worms.
  4. The boys filled the trench with compost and soil.  (And worms.) 🙂How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee HomesteadHow to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee HomesteadHow to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  5. The next task was to spread a thick layer of mulch over the grass inside the Sunflower House.How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  6. Then we used flour to mark our planting spots at one-foot intervals, leaving a two-foot gap in the middle of one end for a door.How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  7. And now, the fun part: we planted two of the tallest sunflower seeds and one morning glory seed in each flour spot.How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  8. In between the flour spots, we planted the two shorter varieties of sunflower seeds.
  9. Lastly, we watered the seeds.How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
  10. Optional: We also located stumps to be used as furniture.  (We still need a third stump to use as a table with the two “chairs”.)

I was surprised at how quickly our seeds sprouted–there were little green shoots poking up out of the ground before Baby Brother was even a week old.

How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead
Aren’t they so cute? Morning glory on the left, with two sunflowers on the right.

The Next Steps

1.  Paper Cups

After the seeds sprouted, Mr. Native Texan helped the boys cut out the bottoms of paper cups and place them around each seedling.  This will protect the small plants from cutworms.  When the plants get bigger, we’ll remove the cups.

How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead

2.  Stakes

Then, as the largest variety of sunflowers grows taller, we may need to provide extra support with a stake at each stalk.  Our Black Russians may reach 15 feet in height!

3.  Twine

Finally, we’ll train the morning glories to climb the Black Russian sunflowers.  When the vines reach the tops of the sunflowers, we’ll loosely tie twine from the tall sunflowers on one side to those on the other side in order to allow the morning glories to climb across the house, providing a roof for the Sunflower House.

 We’re excited to watch our Sunflower House continue to grow!

More sunflower fun…

  • How to Harvest Sunflower Seeds for Re-Planting & Gift-Giving
  • Perfect Garden Project for Kids – see pictures of several years’ worth of our sunflower houses

 

How to Plant a Sunflower House | Yankee Homestead

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Kathleen

Kathleen Henderson is the Yankee behind the Homestead, where she keeps up with Mr. Native Texan, three busy boys, a large dog, an assortment of chickens and an organic garden on three beautiful acres in Northern Virginia. Yankee Homestead is where she organizes her tips, tricks and resources for a healthy life. Favorite topics include real food recipes, gluten-free living, essential oils and home remedies, all things natural and nontoxic, plus mommy musings and homeschooling resources. Find out more on the About page

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Filed Under: Nature Tagged With: `, garden, nature for kids

Disclosure: In order to support this blog, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of reimbursement for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. Yankee Homestead Media LLC is also a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

I am not a doctor and the statements on this blog have not been evaluated by the FDA. Products mentioned here are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please do not ask me for medical advice.

Comments

  1. Debi Huang (@GoExploreNature) says

    06/13/2014 at 12:11 am

    I’ve always wanted to do this. Thanks for the great photos & clear step-by-step instructions. I’m pinning this for future reference!

    Reply
    • Kathleen says

      06/18/2014 at 11:55 am

      Sure. Thanks for stopping by, Debi!

      Reply
  2. Laurie says

    08/18/2014 at 12:10 am

    This is awesome!! I’ve wanted to do this for awhile but couldn’t find instructions with good pictures. (I’m totally a visual person.) Thanks for the great pictures. We are making plans to tackle this project starting in December. (the seedlings at least) Yay! Yay!

    Oh, will you post any more pictures?

    Reply
    • Kathleen says

      08/18/2014 at 10:11 am

      Laurie–It’s been so fun to watch the sunflowers grow! I do need to post an update, with pics of the tall sunflowers. I’ll try to do that soon. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Beckie says

    05/26/2015 at 6:00 pm

    Hi Kathleen

    I just found your post on growing a sunflower house – thanks for the clear instructions and the photos. Now I need to find a spot in my garden to have a go at this!
    Any chance you can post a photo of the finished house please? (If you’re not too busy with all your boys!)

    Thanks

    Beckie

    Reply
    • Kathleen says

      05/26/2015 at 8:54 pm

      Well, I never did manage to get a photo of the house. Plus, we didn’t do the best job with the morning glory part…it was that postpartum haze! But we’re attempting it again this year, so stay tuned…good luck with your plans! 🙂

      Reply
  4. Lyset Pena says

    04/11/2018 at 3:47 pm

    Thank you for such a neat idea to do with my kids. Do you have an “after” photo that you will be posting?

    Reply
    • Kathleen says

      04/11/2018 at 3:51 pm

      Hi Lyset, Did you see these pictures: http://yankeehomestead.com/perfect-garden-project-kids/

      Reply

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Hi, I'm Kathleen!  Married to a native Texan, I'm a country-living, homeschooling, work-at-home mom of three energetic boys with a passion to educate and empower women to make over their family's health.  Want to get healthy, but don't know where to start?  Come along and join our journey...your real-life healthy living starts here!

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