Certain flowers are symbolic, poinsettias for Christmas, Easter lilies, daffodils heralding spring, chrysanthemums, autumn. Several plants are also associated with places; the “edelweiss”, memorialized in “The Sound of Music”, representing Austria, the “Yellow Rose” of Texas, the magnolias of Louisiana, Hawaiian hibiscus, Ireland’s shamrock. Yet there is no flower with as strong an association as the sunflower, which has become a universal metaphor for Ukraine, and a symbol of strength, perseverance, and hope.

The varieties most familiar to us are the towering annuals, like “American Giant” and “Mammoth”, which soar ten to fifteen feet in height, their equally impressive flowers offering golden daisies surrounding edible seeds. Fields of sunflowers are magnificent summer sights, yet they are also splendid grown singularly in the garden. Along with the familiar yellow flowers, there are varieties with petals as pale as ‘Lemon Queen’ with luminous, flaxen flowers, and those as dark as ‘Black Magic’, with velvet, mahogany rays, and in between, there is every color of the ‘Sunset’, with seed mixtures to include amber, orange, rust, sienna, ochre, crimson, maroon, sometimes all on the same petal.

Perennial sunflowers, though of less stature than the more famous members of the Helianthus family, return to gardens every summer with the same cheeriness as their annual relatives. Though they’re sometimes referred to as “dwarf” sunflowers, they range from two to ten feet. The tallest of these, the ‘Giant Sunflower’, resembles most closely the well-known annual, its seed-filled, brown center surrounded by yellow petals on central stalks reaching to nine feet. ‘Swamp sunflower’, so named for its tolerance of the salty soil and air of shoreline marshes, is another tall perennial, its bright golden flowers soaring to six feet. The ‘Showy Sunflower’, also known colloquially as the “cheerful” sunflower for its fringe of sunny yellow petals circling particularly dark brown centers, bloom on six foot plants in August and September, their seeds ripening late in the season for the benefit of migrating birds.The stature of the ‘Maximilian’ sunflower, also known as the “prairie sunflower” for its location in the wild, is variable. Depending on climate and conditions, this sunflower will remain as small as three feet, or grow as tall as ten. With petals a little paler than most sunflowers, it seeds itself from its prolific crop which attract several species of pollinators. The ‘Western Sunflower’, yellow, star-like flowers circling a darker center, rises from basal foliage to a modest two to three feet. Forming clumps in the garden, this native of mid-western prairies attracts birds and butterflies. Helianthus ‘mollis’, called the “ashy sunflower” for its grayish foliage, sweeps through thickets, fields, rocky glades, woodlands, and along roadsides from the deep south to the Great Lakes. Their yellow flowers, delicate yet sturdy, rise on two to four foot stems. The ‘Willowleaf’ sunflower blooms prolifically on stems with lance-like cascading leaves. ‘First Light, with lemony petals and chocolate centers, and ‘Autumn Gold’ with sunny yellow petals circling amber centers, are more compact varieties for the garden, forming floriferous mounds. The ‘Jerusalem Artichoke’, also known as “sun root” or “earth apple”, has large, leathery leaves, and a branching habit for its plentiful golden flowers. Popular cultivars of helianthus ‘Multiflorous’ are all double flowered, resembling dahlias with their full, frilly petals, ‘Loddon Gold’, with dark gold flowers, ‘Sunshine Daydream’, a sunny yellow, and the butterscotch colored ‘Capenoch Star’.

Plants in the Heliopsis family are closely related to Helianthus and are referred to as “false sunflowers”; helios’ comes from the Greek word for “the sun”, and ‘opsis’, meaning “to resemble in allusion”. Our native Heliopsis helianthoides is colloquially called the “ox-eye daisy”. Neither toxic nor invasive, this wildflower is suitable for inclusion in our gardens where it blooms throughout the summer: branching, glabrous stems with dark green, triangular, toothed leaves, rise three to four feet to bear sprays of cheery orange-yellow blossoms with amber colored center cones. Along with the native of our fields and meadows, there are a few choice cultivars.
‘Bleeding Hearts’ is a spectacular selection with dark purple leaves and bittersweet buds opening to mango colored blossoms which eventually mature to bronze. The sultry foliage and fiery flowers make stunning contributions to the garden. Equally striking is the cultivar ‘Prairie Sunset’ which forms tall, sturdy clumps of yellow flowers surrounding dark red cones. ‘Tuscan Sun’ forms compact mounds smothered with golden flowers circling caramel-colored centers. The cultivar ‘Summer Nights’ is a four-foot, shrubby plant with dark green foliage tinged purple, crested with yellow flowers with mahogany cones. ‘Asahi’, which means “morning sun” in Japanese, is a branching variety, two feet tall and wide, with double blossoms of golden petals resembling pom-poms.

These smaller varieties fit more easily into garden schemes where their vibrant rays provide long-lasting splashes of color to cavort with the sunset hues of daylily trumpets, branches of scarlet crocosmia, and the red pom-poms of bee balm. But the large sunflowers can also find inclusion in the garden where their towering forms serve as focal points. In our gardens the magnificent gold sunflower rises along the burgundy branches of smoke tree and ninebark, the sunny yellow discs offering vertical reprieve for the cascading chocolate limbs. ‘Coconut Ice’, a five foot tall column crowned with luminous, white petals, glows in the moon garden, and a mixture of sunset hued cultivars stuns in a garden of the prairie grass, calamogrostis, brightly colored lilies, clumps of black-eyed Susans, and ribbons of yellow coreopsis.

I use sunflowers throughout our gardens now, the annual, perennial, and false varieties, yet my favorite sunflowers were my firsts, forming a wall all the way around a stone patio near the kitchen door. Plants and furniture have encroached upon the space which no longer allows for the same effect. That happens a lot – with the veil of feverfew which never reseeded itself in a garden of deep pastels, with the carpet of Johnny-jump-ups that leapt away and into the lawn — but that first year, with only sunflowers and only one chair, one could rest for a spell in this place where they spilled pure sunshine, and at night, sit in solitude beneath their glowing “lamps”.

Dayna McDermott