Growing Procut Gold Sunflowers

Hi Lovelies,

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As you can see, the centers of the older blooms tend to become “fuzzy” as they age. Some people love this look, but I feel like they start to look somewhat “dingy”.

I can’t even begin to tell you how busy I felt today. It’s not that there were necessarily many items on my to-do list, in fact, the list consisted of one thing – harvest sunflowers. Harvest, I indeed did! Since discussing sunflowers has managed to turn into a series of sorts, I figured I’d go ahead and write about the variety that’s just now coming into bloom.

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This newly opened bud has a flatter, more green center disk. Ideally, I like harvesting no later than this stage.

One advantage of reading blog posts is benefiting from the experience of others.  Therefore, you won’t find me writing about anything that I don’t have at least 2 or 3 seasons worth of experience with. This is my second year growing ProCut Gold sunflowers, and as always, I think they’re total superstars.

Unlike the varieties we’ve looked at in the past, the disks in the center of these sunnies are not dark, but rather range from green to yellow depending upon how long their petals have been open to the world.

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The flowers in this bucket were the largest. Like other members of the ProCut family, these sunflowers are also quite sturdy.

Gold, in congruence with other members of the ProCut family, are pollenless. This means that they will not produce seeds unless pollinated by bees carrying that wonderful yellow powder from neighboring productive varieties. They’re day neutral, meaning that they’ll flower regardless of the length of nights/days. This makes any of the ProCut family ideal for succession planting. In order to maintain a continuous supply of sunflowers, I like planting seeds every two weeks until the first week of August. Gold also boasts an early bloom time at around 55 days, at least in my experience.

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“Seriously, you should have totally planted some more of these. Do you mind if I get a drink real quick?”

While I love and enjoy Gold, there are several small things about the variety which I consider negative in regards to production of quality cut stems. Foremost, flowers seem to progress very quickly when compared to other varieties that I’ve grown. For example, it’s no doubt that it’s always best to catch sunflowers when they’ve just opened – or even before the petals have completely unfurled when insect pressure is at an all time high in the peak of summer. But, let’s be honest – no one is perfect. There are definitely times when harvesting has to wait. I find that with Gold, a few days delay in harvest can sometimes translate into an “overdeveloped” looking center disk. With this, the center color become less crisp and I can’t help but feel as the flowers begin look “dingy” or “tired” if such a thing is even possible.

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Pollinators seem to favor the Gold variety. In this picture I can count at least 10 beneficials. These blooms are past their prime, however, there is one perfect flower at the very bottom of the photo. So pretty!

Planted at a 9″x 9″ spacing, these sunflowers did incredibly well.  Like all the other sunflowers that I grow, they’re totally easy to direct seed after frost has gone for good.  While the height of the flowers reached just over 3ft, I can only assume that their seemingly stunted stature was due to monsoon-like rain that they endured for the vast majority of their growth period. Flower size varied slightly, but was overall consistent. In addition to this, about 75% of flowers opened within about 36 hours of each other, with the rest following shortly thereafter. Until I try more varieties like Gold, it will be a permanent member of my garden. Though it may have some faults, when picked at its peak, Gold is absolutely gorgeous.

Hope this has helped! If you’ve ever grown this sunflower, your experience may have been completely different than my own – that’s the beauty of gardening! Please feel free to share your experiences growing ProCut Gold in the comments! I really enjoy hearing the success of others! Much love!

 

 

4 thoughts on “Growing Procut Gold Sunflowers

    1. I’d also love to know if you’ve harvested any mature seeds and successfully grown from them.

  1. The seeds will not come true to form – they have to get their pollen from another sunflower; therefore they will be a cross between the two. You can still plant the seeds but you won’t get a Procut(TM) plant from it. Branching is a dominant gene so if wild sunflowers pollinate your Procut (TM) you will likely have branching plants. If there are no other kinds of sunflowers near enough for wind or insects to bring pollen at all, then you will not get any seeds. Hope that helps.

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