Pinching Sunflowers

-Pinching Sunflowers-

Several of the sunflowers we sell are branching varieties.  This means it is in the sunflowers nature to branch out and produce additional flowers.  You can help this along by pinching the top of your sunflower once it is around 1 foot tall.  If you don't pinch a sunflower it will most likely produce one large flower that is 5" to 8" in diameter.  If you pinch the same sunflower it will produce six to eight flowers that are 3" to 4".  Pinching is a preference and we usually pinch.  In the video below we are pinching a Strawberry Sunrise sunflower that is about 14" tall.  Like pinching zinnia or dahlia we will pinch out the top one or two inches of new growth from the top of the flower.