My daughter Jess’ favorite flower is the sunflower.  I plant them in my garden each year and love to find new varieties that I have not had before.

Growing sunflowers is pretty easy if you keep just a few things in mind.

Plant a Sunflower to Brighten your Day

I’ve written about sunflowers many times on my blog, simply because Jess loves them so much. 

I said good bye to her twice with sunflowers – once to the UK and once to California. And for her graduation party, our large sunflowers were in full bloom.

Last year, Jess had the opportunity to study abroad in the UK for a semester.  My flowers had almost all finished flowering when she left. 

All but the sunflowers and black eyed Susans, that is!

It was so appropriate that I said goodbye to Jess and then picked sunflowers for my house.

Jess recently moved away to California.  I said goodbye to her once with sunflowers when she studied abroad last year. 

The weekend before she left to move to California, I took this photo of her in a field of sunflowers that were in full bloom.

So here you go baby girl…some photos just for you!

Teddy bear Sunflowers are a mammoth of a plant.

Read about them here.  I need to get one so that it will be blooming when Jess visits next year!

For Jess’ college graduation, we had a huge party.  Not surprisingly, the star of the flowers in bloom was this huge sunflower.  Appropriate much?

When fall rolls around, I combine sunflowers with pumpkins in a unique no carve sunflower pumpkin display. Check it out!

Today one of the fans of The Gardening Cook on Facebook Shared pictures of her sunflowers and that prompted me to write this post for you Jess.  I miss you!