Strawflowers in my Garden

 

Check these strawflowers out. I only started planting them in my yard last year. To me in years past, they looked a little too poke-y and sharp to have in the yard with a dog and young children. 

I actually learned the hard way about having sharp and poke-y plants after a parent volunteer offered me tithonia for the school garden a few years ago. Tithonia, aka Mexican Sunflowers become extremely sharp and poke-y after the flowers are done blooming, the flower uses this method as a way to spread seeds (if you have an elementary schooler, you can ask them about "seed dispersal" in grades 2 and up - they learn the 4 seed dispersal methods in second grade). The dispersal of the tithonia seeds is done by basically grabbing onto whatever the pokey and sharp seeds can grab onto and BAM, the seeds are on their way to a new home, some blood may be drawn as well. 

But continuing on with Strawflowers - they are actually very soft and NOT as sharp as I thought they would be. In my second year of growing them, they are super easy to grow, they can withstand a minimal amount of dog pee (I just made sure to rinse really well after I caught Phil peeing on them!); they do love more sun that I originally thought (I would say they need 6-8 hours for full blooms); and they fill in empty spots very nicely. I'll keep these on my annual growing list for next year, I think I really enjoy the orange and yellow blooms so I'll keep a look out in the seed catalogs in January for some easy growing varieties.

In my video you'll see my plant that I grew from seed starting this past March. I planted three plants together to make it a little more showy. Blooms are still coming, some are mid-bloom, and at the end you'll see that the seeds of the strawflower are pretty soft and easy to disperse. If I had wanted to save the seeds to plant over the winter, an easy way to save the seeds is to cover the seedhead with a paper bag, snip the stem if it's all finished blooming, and then flip the bag with the stem, close as tightly as possible and shake all the seeds off. You can also just pull the seedheads off and put into a paper bag to dry and save in a cool, dark, dry spot in your home for seed starting.

Strawflowers are a super easy way to add color and variety into your garden if you enjoy annual flowers, they look great in bouquets, and give a great textured look to your garden.