After last year’s slugfest that defeated my sunflower-growing attempts, I tried again. Sadly, the ‘moulin rouge’ sunflowers were not to be either. I tried my cunning plan of putting cardboard tubes around them but a number of factors (clumsy planting out, unwilling seedlings, slugs) conspired against them.

Fortunately, I’d bought some back-up seeds, so I tried those. This time, I kept them in pots for longer, outside on the garden table where they got the sun but slugs couldn’t reach. Here are the two that survived long enough to be replanted into a bigger pot (actually three made it to this pot but one shrivelled and died quickly):

Successful sunflowers in 2008

The tallest of the two is now a respectable 119cm tall (from soil level to flower).