My two year old son bought home a tiny little sunflower seedling in a yoghurt pot about 2 months ago as his nursery is running a competition to see how high we can get it to grow. I kept it on the window sill for a while but it grew too big so I re-potted it and it began to thrive, about 6 weeks ago I planted it in the garden and its about 5 feet tall, it has yet to flower though, they grow so fast I'm sure I can actually see it getting bigger!. Sunflowers are annual plants that originated in America, I believe they are called Sunflowers as the flowers resemble the sun.

What I find fascinating about the them is that the flower petals are designed by nature to be a spiral, each of the small spirals is angled at exactly 137.5 degrees, therefore producing a perfect pattern of interconnected spirals in the Fibonacci sequence, nature truly is a wonderful thing.

Sunflowers can grow to amazing heights, though for the average gardener they can vary between 5 and 12 feet, there have been reported Sunflowers reaching over 26 feet, though I'm not so sure mine and my sons will get that tall.

Sunflowers prefer to grow in good fertile soil that is well drained and ideally they like to be positioned in full sun.

Sunflowers make a welcome addition to the garden and are very easy to grow. Sunflowers are can also be used in a variety of different ways, their seeds can be eaten dried or roasted and they make a great snack or addition to a cous cous salad. You can also purchase Sunflower oil to be used in cooking and their oil can also be used as a bio fuel, so you could fuel yourself or your car with them.

Overall I think sunflowers are great, they look fab, they can be used in a variety of different ways, they can power cars, they have also been painted by famous artists and I like to sprinkle sunflower seeds on my quinoa salads sometimes. I am also hoping to win the tallest sunflower competition, for my son of course, what's not to like about them?