This giant sunflower plant is obviously in the exponential growth stage. It has grown about a metre in less than a month and will soon be towering over the garden swing!

This is rather exciting – our Mongolian giant sunflower plant has now surpassed the height of our garden swing. At today’s measuring-in, the plant is now over 1.7 metres high!

I don’t know whether or not to include the 15 or so centimetres of the plant that I planted below ground because it was rather leggy, but if I do, then it will actually be almost 2 metres high! That means it’s about two-thirds of the way to adulthood.

On the one hand, this is exciting, but on the other, I have to put in a longer support stake because the plant is now higher than the long pole I put in only 3 weeks ago… I think I will end up using one of the bamboo poles that we use for hanging laundry to dry on!

I’ve been using wire ties to hold the plant stem near the supports. What I normally do is secure one end of the tie to the support then loosely drape the tie around the plant stem and attach it to the pole. Those have to be checked every few days because the ties may start cutting into the stem as it grows bigger. You can remove them once the stem hardens up, though, so I usually have only two or three ties on the plant at any one time.

This is what I do to help the sunflower stay upright – a loose loop around the stem until it hardens off and a higher part of it needs supporting. I know it can probably do the job itself, but with my luck, I would end up with a leaning plant…

I wonder whether this plant will grace us with a flower when Christmas comes, or if it will flower before that. Either way, it’s going to be high up!

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