Sunflowers and Finches In The Garden

I love sunflowers.  They make me happy, look at their beauty faces.   They dance in the garden and add brilliant color among the greenery.  This is my fifth year growing sunflowers, and I’m in love.  The first year, I didn’t have one seed germinate.  However, I changed my method of germinating  them, and bam!  The key is to use bottle greenhouses to germinate sunflower seeds.  Once the weather is good I transfer them to the garden.  So, today let’s discuss how to attract the American Gold Finch.  I have had great success using this method.  Check out my other sunflower gardening tips before you leave. 

sunflowers

 

Below are some of my favorite sunflowers varieties.  I make sure they have a place in my backyard garden every year.  The Gold Finches love my sunflowers as much as I do.  They bring beauty to my backyard.  I love sitting on my deck watching the Goldfinch feast on the sunflower seeds.  Unfortunately, the lens on my camera doesn’t capture the beauties in the garden.  I guess I shouldn’t blame the lens, I need to learn how to use my camera!

 

 

Autumn Beauty

 

These are Autumn Beauties.  I love their brownish yellow color.  It reminds me of fall, my favorite time of year.  I stagger my sunflower seedlings when planting them in the garden to ensure I have sunflowers for fall.  The Autumn Beauty is beautiful in fall centerpieces.

 

Gardening tips

          Mammoth

 

This variety is the Russian Mammoth.  It grows anywhere from 10 – 12+ feet tall.  The fence behind it is 6 feet.  As a result, it towers above the smaller varieties making a grand display in my backyard garden.

 

lemon queen sunflowers

 

        Lemon Queen

 

 

So, my favorite sunflower is the Lemon Queen.  It’s much smaller compared to the Mammoth.  It only grows to about 5 feet.  I plant the Mammoth between the Lemon Queen and Autumn Beauties so there can be some depth in the garden.

 


 

In a few weeks, the centers will be filled with sunflower seeds and the American Gold Finch will have a new feeder.  Right now they are enjoying the Nyjer Seed in the sock and tube feeder.

 

American Gold Finch

 

 

 

Furthermore, when the sunflowers mature, the finches will eat every seed on the stalks if I don’t remove the heads. Because they are so beautiful the majority of the time I just let them eat until their heart is content.  Take a close look at the pictures, because there’s 2 males and a female in this picture.  The female is the dull colored finch at the top.  However, the males turns the same dull color as the female in the fall/winter.  They “color up” in the spring and summer to the brilliant color shown.

 


 

Also, this feeding station is outside my bedroom window.  I have a Nyjer Thistle feeder and a seed sock at the feeding station.  The finches will come to both.  As a result, I hang both of the feeders.  Some days I may have 10 or 12 American Goldfinch feasting on the Nyjer Thistle.  So, the finches head to the seed sock first for some reason.  They will feed from the tube feeder, which is my preference for them.  Simply because of their aerobatic moves on the perches.

Finally, next year I hope to add additional varieties of sunflowers to the garden.  Do you grow sunflowers? What variety do you grow?  Grab a few packs of sunflower seeds, and use my bottle greenhouse method to germinate them for your garden.  Also, purchase the thistle and feeders.  You’ll be enjoying these beauties in your backyard too.

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Comments

  1. I am curious — what would they do if you put the dried sunflower head out for them? I have done this twice and a squirrel (which we have very few of) had a blast with it and the birds sat around gathering seeds around him and going through his leftovers! He is very messy.