Join our 4th Birthday sunflower growing competition! 🌱🌻

 

We’ve wanted to host a sunflower growing competition for YEARS so here we are having a sunflower growing competition - because we want to!

Last years sunflower that I started very late, forgot to water a lot and still made it to almost as big as me!

We love sunflowers, growing stuff and competitions so it’s really a dream come true.

It’s just a bit of fun (we say until someone grows a sunflower taller than ours…).

We’ll try our best to make sure everyone’s playing fair and all that - and very importantly sort out some prizes - other than the pride of knowing you’re basically the best sunflower grower in the north east, basically.

HOW’S IT GOING TO WORK?

🪱 Enter below - all entries must be in by 25th April to be in with a chance of winning a prize.

🌱 Either pick up a packet of 3 seeds from our studio between Saturday 15th April - Friday 21st April 2023 or buy your own - take them home, plant them, tend for them, talk to them, feed them etc etc.

🌻 On 1st September 2023 we’ll send you an email asking for a measurement + picture of you* with your sunflower. Simple as that!

*if you don’t want to be in the picture you can ask a friend, neighbour or helpful animal to pose.

There will be prizes… we’re going to do a shout out on insta to see what you think would be a good prize for the biggest and the best sunflower, and there will be boobie prizes too because we can’t all be gifted with green fingers.

Register your entry here ⤵️

* Entries must be in by 25th April to be in with a chance of winning a prize. Pictures / stories might be shared on our socials.

We’ve chosen Unwins seeds as they’re what they had in Asda when we decided we were doing this… No other biases.

TOP GROWING TIPS:

(straight from the Unwins website - you can read the whole page here)

“Nothing beats the simple beauty of tall sunflowers. With a little feeding and nurturing, it is easy to grow plants to 4m (12ft) or more! Loved by children and adults alike, the plants are quick growing and in autumn the attractive seed heads are great for providing wild birds with a treat.

🌱 Flowers up to 4m or more
🌱 Great for children
🌱 Huge 40cm flower heads
🌱 Quick growing
🌱 Strong sturdy stem

Sow indoors March - May, flowers July - October.

How to sow:

  • Fill a small 6cm (2 1/2 in) pot with seed compost, shake well and level firm with the base of another pot.

  • Water well with a fine rose

  • Sow seeds individually into compost, pushing seeds to 1cm (1/2 in) deep

  • Place in a propagator at 15-20°C  (60-70°F) or cover pot with plastic and leave in a warm room

Growing on:

  • When shoots appear, remove plastic cover

  • Keep seedlings in a light position, but shade from direct sunlight

  • Grow on in a minimum temperature of 10°C

Hardening off / planting out:

  • Gradually accustom plants to outside conditions for 2-3 weeks before planting out when the risk of frost has passed

  • Water well until established

 Special note : do not remove spent sunflower heads. They provide attractive autumn seed heads which are great for providing wild birds with a treat.”

We hope you enjoy this as much as we will - if you follow us on socials we’ll be posting updates of how our seedlings are coming along [insta @thepotteryexperience]

Happy growing!

Lots of love, Hazel + the pottery exp team xoxo

 
Hazel Stephenson