Very nice!!!

How many stems of each do you use? What do you tie them with, raffie?

Steve

Yes, we use raffia. Generally, we use 7-9 sunflowers. For the ones in the photo which I threw together, I may have used ten.

I can't see the picture and this Saturday will be my first market in my area where I am selling sunflowers. Can you email the picture to me please?
Thanks!
Catherine

I also can't view the picture...help!! I'd like to see them too!!

Wendy

I'll post the revised Sunflower Bouquet this evening. I'm working on it, and trying to get ready for Wednesday market at the same time. Help!!!!

This isn't the revision of course. But, I love this photo in one of our fields.......

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flowerfarmer,
I like your sunflower bunches. What kind of grass is that? On the last pic of just the sun, It is all the way open, so how many vase life days do you think a flower at this stage has and do you notice that the petals get brushed off easy when they get this far along? When making bouquets I was wondering if you notice that there might be marks on the actural petals, do you cull it and only put the best or do you mix flowers in that might not be just perfect?

sorry for all the questions,

rita

Howdy,

Nice, Nice.... Ok how much do you get for ur bunches??? Also what types do you grow???

Thanks a ton, Tim

No, we don't cut the Sunflower Goddess. I don't know if it is one that reseeded; or, if it is an offtype. Vase life would not be very good for a sunflower open this much. They are left in the field for us to enjoy. And, yes, we cull the sunflowers that have marks. The sunflowers in the photo get spots in our high humidity -- which is terrible this year.

Flowerfarmer.
Very nice bouquets! What is the name of that one? If you use 7-10 stems, you must get about $8-10.00 per bunch? Not to pry, just wanting to make sure I'm fair with my bouquets. I'm aware all areas are different, just wanted a ballpark figure. You must really appreciate the rest you get in the winter, although I'll bet it's short for you.
Cheryl

The second photo is clear as a bell,(you ought to frame it and hang it over your breakfast table--it makes ME smile-might be a fun way to start your mornings, assumming you're not seeing several thousand suns just outside your breakfast window every day!) but the first pic is a little dark. I can't see the/any filler or the vase. You and Rita commented on "the grass", which I'm guessing is the object in the upper right part of the bouquet. Is it elsewhere in your bouquet? And, is there more than one bouquet in the picture? Looks like there's a second one just behind the first.

It looks like you've essentially turned a "grower's bunch" into a "bouquet" by "just" adding some grass and cutting the stems short(er). If so, then VERY creative, inventive, and a GREAT way to turn a maybe non-seller into a winner! That is, if you don't often sell grower's bunches. If you sell them too, then you double your Fun$$$! I know Jeanne has said that people in her neck of the woods rarely buy grower's bunches, which is why I'm asking if your customers do.

Great photos, thanks for sharing them.

Susi

Great pics! It's always been one of my favorite flowers, and yours are beautiful. I especially like the one of the field. It looks like they all turned toward the camera and poked their heads up to smile.

Lovely, simple to make, and eminently sellable. Those would sell beautifully out of a bucket here, too. I've got some French florist buckets that would work. The bouquet couldn't be more perfect. Thanks for sharing!

Jeanne

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. The pale yellow sunflower is Premier Light Yellow. We're using alot of them in our large bouquets; however, we had 10,000 come into bloom at the same time as ProCut and Sunbright. In order to move them, we've added 3-5 stems of the grass (which is a millet) to the center of the bunch.

Wow. Cheryl, you are good with your guesstimate. They should be $10; however, we have to move alot of them -- so the price is $8. The bunches in the photo had 10 stems. The bunches for market today had 7-8 stems. They are so easy to put together.

Jeanne, we have a collection of these European buckets which we like to use when we have simple bunches. For today's market, we added some of the grass to the grower's bunches of zinnias just to give them a little zest.

Susi, we didn't have to cut the stems shorter. Those puppies are short in the field. My 8 and 11 year old granddaughters go down the rows and strip the leaves down with gloved hands. Then, we go behind and cut them. It's alot of bending -- and for sunflowers who would have thought we'd be bending over to cut them.!!! They're probably waist high. We do sell alot of grower's bunches of suns and zinnias, Susi. We used to sell bunches of plume, grasses, wheat, celosia, euphorbia, amaranth, whatever. I don't know if you remember my story about the vendor at one of our markets having her friends purchasing straight bunches from us last year, taking the flowers home, and bringing them back to the next market mixed with some of her flowers. Other than the zinnias and sunflowers, we don't sell straight bunches to anyone at that particular market unless we know them. Oddly enough, this vendor does not have plume, celosia, euphorbia, or grasses in any of her bouquets this season.

Yoicks!! Read and learn. I just Googled "Premier Light Yellow" and found several online companies selling seeds for a quarter each, in 10-packs. Then I found Harris Seeds, selling them for $16.95 for 500, and better prices for larger quantities. Y'all probably have even better sources.

Questions...what kind of spacing do you use on these critters? Do you sow and thin, or sow to space?

Sorry, I'm new.

Donn,
Ours are direct seeded 6 to 9 inches apart. Since the spacing varies slightly, we get different size flower heads and we don't have to be so precise. Customers seem to want the variation in size -- it makes the bouquets more casual and not so uniform. That's my story; and, I'm sticking with it for now anyway. It makes perfect sense to this person who is functioning on three hours sleep, and a grueling market day.

Ya. We are able to purchase seed for Premier Light Yellow for around one-half a penny per seed. We're also buying 10s of thousands of sunflower seeds per season. I glanced at the Johnny's catalog; but, didn't see this variety listed. Harris Seed is a good source for dependable seed.

We sow to space. We've also been known to sow when it is sleeting and snowing the first part of May (We growers are a breed unto ourselves, indeed). So, anyway, there's no thinning involved. Gosh, we barely got the weeds mowed between the rows.

Thanx, FF. I can't think of a reason why I can't apply some of your commercial techniques to my miniscule garden, and I can easily use 500 seeds of A Sunflower, over 1-2 years.

Hi Flowerfarmer...I am trying to decide which sunflowers to grow next summer and did a GW search for 'sunflower' and this post came up. I was wondering if you had any recommendations for sunflowers that look great in the garden and are good for flower arrangements too.

Thanks,
pm2

OOOpps! I meant to ask if you could repost the photo of your sunflower bouquet again?

:-)

That post is one and a half years old. I don't remember which picture was posted at that time. However, here's a picture of sunflower bunches in the fall. Judging by their size, they were planted 6" apart.

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One more display photo because it is such a gray day here in Michigan. And, maybe because we love sunflowers, and dahlias, and farming, and markets, and.........................

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