30/05/2026
Thank you so much for joining us at our 🌻 Half Term Gardening Special🌻!
Here’s a guide for your little gardeners for nurturing their sunflower seeds…
🌻Caring for Your Sunflower🌻
Just like in the story we shared, Sam Plants a Sunflower, your tiny seed now needs sunshine, water, care and patience to help it grow 🌱
Here are a few simple tips to help your sunflower grow big and strong…just like you! 💪
☀️ Where should I keep it?
Sunflowers LOVE sunshine. For now, place your sunflower:
🪴 on a sunny windowsill
🪴 somewhere warm and bright
🪴 away from cold drafts
💧 How often should I water it?
Keep the soil slightly damp by giving it a little drink of water every 1–2 days. Try not to let the soil get really, really wet. Your grown up might have a little spray bottle or mini watering can you can use.
🌱 When should I move it into a bigger pot?
After a few weeks, your sunflower will hopefully grow taller than the pot or have a few strong leaves. Now it’s ready to go in a bigger pot or be planted outside in your garden.
Where should I plant it?
Choose somewhere sunny, sheltered from strong wind, and with space to grow tall (as tall as a grown up!).
💦 How often do I water it outside?
Continue to give it regular sprinkles of water until it seems happy in its new home. You can then move onto giving it a really big drink 1-2 times a week.
Tips:
🪴 Always water at the base of your plant
🪴 If the leaves start turning. yellow or limp, they might be having too much water.
🌻 Tall sunflowers may need support
Your sunflower might need a little help staying upright as it becomes taller. You can ask your grown up to help you gently tie the stem to a bamboo cane or garden stick.
Now you can care for your sunflower and watch it change as it grows 🙂
🐌 Pest control
Hungry slugs and snails find little sunflower leaves really yummy! You can help keep your sunflower safe by adding a circle of washed and crushed eggshells around the base. Add new eggshells after lots of rain.
👀 Look for wildlife
While your sunflower grows, see if you can spot bees 🐝, butterflies 🦋 and birds 🪶
Growing sunflowers and other plants helps to look after the nature in your garden 🌿
🌾 When can I harvest my sunflower?
Towards the end of summer or early autumn, your sunflower head may begin to droop and look a bit sad. Don't worry, this is normal. It means the seeds are ready to harvest 🎊
Ask your grown up to cut the flower head, and leave it somewhere warm to dry.
There’s lots you can do with your dried sunflower head:
🐦 hang it outside to watch the birds peck the seeds
🔍 use it as part of a nature exploration tray
🧪 make a magical potion with the petals
The seeds could be used for counting games, making pictures, patterns or loose parts play.
✉️ Save your seeds
Carefully save some seeds by popping them in a paper envelope, or paper bag. They need to be kept somewhere cool, dark and dry until next year….when you can grow even MORE sunflowers!! 🎉🎉🎉
🌻 Did you know?
Young sunflowers turn their heads to follow the sun across the sky! ☀️
The record for the tallest sunflower ever, grew to nearly 11 meters. That’s the same as 2 T-Rex’s on top of each other! 🤯🦖🦖
Happy growing and exploring little gardeners!! 🌻
Love from Rachel 💛
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A gentle reminder for grown-ups 🌿
Please don’t feel pressure to do any of this, or like you must get it “right”. Gardening with or without children, can be unpredictable and imperfect, and that’s part of the magic ✨
Whether your child’s sunflower grows huge, or didn’t even survive the car journey home from the session, your child is still learning through the experience. Most importantly, your child simply loves doing things together with you 🤗
Credits:
✨ Seeds, pots & markers: Downham Home & Garden
✨ Compost: Downham Market Lidl GB
✨ Metal mister: My own from home
✨ ‘Sam Grows a Sunflower’ book: My own from home but try Words & Wonder Books in Downham Market.
✨ Other gardening books: Borrowed from Downham Market Library
