Sunflowers need ample moisture

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Question: Do sunflowers grow in Las Vegas? Last year I planted 10 sunflower seeds and had very bad luck. In about seven days, three of the 10 started to push out of the ground. I was so excited, and I watched them grow every day. I watered them in the evening, and every new leaf they were growing made me so happy. As the weather got hotter, they started to wilt. Then I watered them in the morning and the evening. They would come back from wilting when I watered them. Then one evening, two of them did not come back. I cried, but I still had one left, so I put up and umbrella against the sun. I put ice cubes all around it and watered it three times a day.

Then it stopped growing and in two weeks, it did not come back from wilting. I am so sad because I watched them grow and I did everything I could, but they never had a chance to grow to be beautiful sunflowers. Did I do something wrong?

Yes, they grow wonderfully in our climate, but you cannot get behind the watering curve or they will fry as yours did. It sounds like your problems were primarily irrigation and perhaps amending the soil on top of that.

They need soil that is dug deep and modified with lots of organic matter. They will need watering at least once a day in summer and perhaps twice a day if you didn't get the soil modified enough.

It will be a good idea if you can put organic mulch 3 or 4 inches deep around the base of the plants. This will help keep the soil moist between irrigations and reduce your weeding.

They will do well on drip irrigation, but you need to have two emitters per plant and water them daily and deeply. Drip irrigation would run for an hour, slowly dripping on the soil covering the roots and letting the water just percolate into the ground deeply.

If you were relying on hand watering with a hose, this may have been a problem. If I water with a hose, I fill a basin around the plants at least twice every time I water. You will not stand there with a hose long enough and let the water drip on the soil slowly when it is 110 degrees.

Try again this year, but make sure you dig the soil deep and add lots of rich compost.

Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.