But why sunflowers? Well, you may be interested to know that there are a whole host of benefits to growing and maintaining sunflowers in your garden – and it doesn’t hurt to get your kids involved too.
Read on to find out the top five reasons for growing sunflowers.
Reason #1: Decorating your house
Not only will sunflowers brighten up your garden, but they also make the most gorgeous cut flowers to put inside your house. With your supervision, and depending on your child’s age, cut your flower stems early in the morning if you can. This is the preferred time of day to snip those beauties for two reasons: firstly, the bees will be eager to get out there and pollinate so you’ll miss the rush, and secondly, this way, the flowers won’t hold the heat from the sun so they’ll last longer inside your home.
Another top tip is to put your flowers into cold clean water, in a cool area of the house, within 10 minutes of cutting. This will allow the sunflowers to absorb as much water as possible and not seal off.
Reason #2: Feeding the bees
Those aforementioned hungry bees will be your new best friends if you plant sunflowers in your garden. Take this opportunity to educate your children on the pollination process, and you can even allow them to watch the bees in action, from a safe distance.
The large yellow petals attract all kind of species of bees, including honey and bumblebees. The centre of the flower houses hundreds and thousands of tiny individual florets which hold all of the delicious nectar and pollen, the main food source for bees.
If you’re looking to create a reliable source of food for those buzzing little creatures, make sure to only buy organic and chemical-free seeds.
Reason #3: Attracting wildlife
Growing sunflowers in your garden is a great way to attract wide varieties of birds – which also act as pest control, to deter insects from destroying your plants. With more and more birds flying through your back garden, this gives you the perfect opportunity to educate your child on different species and the benefits of encouraging birds to visit your new flowerbeds.
To ensure your new friends enjoy the facilities, make sure to add a birdbath and feeder to your garden décor. Your kids will love helping to refill the food and water and wait for birds to come flocking. It teaches them a valuable lesson about kindness and generosity towards animals, and perhaps even act as a gateway into having their first pet!
Reason #4: Health benefits
As well as planting sunflower seeds, you can also eat them!
Sunflower seeds are often found in seed and nut mixes – a great snack to give your little ones, as long as they’re supervised. Sunflower seeds are a great source of vitamin E, magnesium and selenium, as well as a whole host of other nutrients.
Reason #5: Detoxing soil
Another opportunity to educate your children on a slightly more technical side of gardening, sunflowers can help detox contaminated soils, especially in urban areas. In fact, these amazing flowers are sometimes known as phytoremediators which means “plant remedy”.
Essentially, sunflowers have the ability to absorb toxic heavy metal contaminants and poisonous chemicals that may be present in the soil. Of course, you can conduct a little more research of your own, but the bottom line is – sunflowers are extremely beneficial for the environment.
*Collaborative post
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