August 2, 2025
Sunflowers!🌻 Absolutely the happiest flower on Earth. Wouldn’t you agree?
Sunflowers, a symbol of adoration, loyalty, and longevity, represent happiness, friendship, and intelligence. Much like the sun, sunflowers reflect vibrancy and an energy of life. While National Sunflower Day is the official day to celebrate these beautiful flowers, why not declare the entire growing season reason a-plenty to radiate your inner sunshine and mirror the smiling faces of every sunflower encountered!
Then and Now
Did you know sunflowers have been around since about 1000 BCE? In the U.S. indigenous peoples used sunflowers as a valuable food source, for oil, paint, and textiles, and during ceremonies. Some archaeologists even believe sunflowers may have been cultivated before corn. Today, sunflowers are still used for food (seeds, salad mixes) and beverages (tea), cooking oil, in beauty and skin care treatments, for medicinal purposes, and for hobbies and crafts.
The sunflower crop
The U.S. is a mass producer of sunflowers, particularly in the plains states, and is a major crop in both North Dakota and South Dakota. The average cultivated sunflower plant is five to six feet tall, and the central face of disc flowers can grow bigger than a human head. As the weight of the sunflower head becomes heavy, it begins to fall forward causing the petals to fall off. Shortly after the harvest begins. On average, one sunflower can produce up to 2,000 seeds per head. In 2022, North Dakota produced 762 billion pounds of sunflower seeds!
The Happiest and the most Intelligent flower
Have you ever noticed sunflowers track the sun, from sunrise to sunset? It’s true! Sunflowers follow the sun’s movements throughout the day. You may notice that before sunrise, a sunflower is in sort of a sleeping position with its head slightly down. As the sun comes over the horizon, the flower awakens and slowly lifts its face to ‘look’ directly at the rising sun. As the day progresses and we observe the sun moving from east to west, so too does the sunflower by turning its face in sync with the sun’s apparent movements until sunset.1 When the sun sets in the evening, sunflowers nod off to sleep, but not before untwisting themselves and slowly return to face the east. Ingenious!
1 However, on very hot days, sunflowers tend to avoid looking directly at the sun to keep from overheating. And I’ve noticed on cloudy days, sunflowers may appear confused about the sun’s location, seeming to make their best guess on which way to face.
A season of yellows and oranges
Although you can find flowers in the Aster (sunflower) family in the Spring, August is the peak growing and blooming season for these cheerful plants. Brilliant displays of yellow flowers welcoming the morning sun can be found wherever sunflowers grow. Witnessing fields of sunflowers is guaranteed to lift your spirits as you oooooh and aaaaaaaah at their breathtaking beauty.
Ideas to celebrate a day, week, month or year of sunflowers
- Spend a day with a wild sunflower and watch its face track the sun.
- Take a drive to view fields of sunflowers to see their true beauty in mass.
- Give a bouquet of sunflowers to a friend to brighten their day.
- Add sunflower petals and seeds to your salad.
- Create a painting of your favorite sunflower and frame it to enjoy year-round.
- Try your hand at a Zentangled sunflower bouquet ….. there are as many pattern possibilities as there are blooming sunflowers!
- Plan a road trip to North Dakota in August and coordinate places to stop to visit sunflower fields and get updates from local farmers who cultivate sunflowers.
If you missed celebrating this year’s National Sunflower Day, no worries! Every time you come across any sunflower, of any size, anywhere, pause and hold a personal celebration in honor of its splendiferous magnificence!
As always, thanks for stopping by!
Sunflower photos were taken in our backyard ….. all volunteers too!
a curious nature 
OOOH, lovely that you have so many sunflowers growing in your yard! Will you harvest any of the seeds or just let the birds and critters have them? I’ve never seen big fields of sunflowers in the USA, but I have in Hungary, which is one of the largest producers of sunflower seeds and oil in Eastern Europe, along with Ukraine (largest production in the world, although maybe not now) and Russia. The Hungarian word for sunflower is “napraforgó,” which literally means sun (or day) rotating (or turning). I think the Ukrainian word for sunflower has a similar literal meaning. I knew about the turning, but never thought to wonder how and when they got turned back around to face the morning sun. And, soooo interesting about their reaction to extreme heat and to cloudy days. WOW! Once again I am in complete awe about nature. Great Tangle with so many wonderful flower patterns! What an inspiration you are, Barb! Thank you!
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Robin! You never stop surprising me ……. Hungary! Why there? When? Some day I must have the details!!! Your comments refreshed my memory about the importance of sunflower production in Russia and Ukraine, but don’t recall reading anything about Hungary. Excellent! Our mass of sunflowers include Cowpen Daisy, Threadleaf groundsel, tahoka Daisy and annual sunflower ….. most of which came from my seed collection efforts last year. I had child-like fun shaking out, throwing and scattering thousands of seeds last fall everywhere on our disturbed ground (from house construction) and it appears most happily germinated! I love sunflowers and pick out a few to watch closely their sun tracking behaviors. It’s still unbelievable to follow their calculated movements. My next question is: how can their terminal flower stems withstand that twisting first clockwise during the day, then counterclockwise overnight, and for how many times? And then …… do sunflowers growing in the southern hemisphere twist counterclockwise during the day? Sounds like an excellent excuse to travel to Australia?
I seeded all those seeds just for the birds, but hope to recollect thousands to reseed for next year.
Thanks for your great comments. Since you’ve seen field of Hungary sunflowers in bloom, your next travel adventure must be to North Dakota to witness their incredible displays, and then compare!
Have a delightfully splendiferous day, my dear friend!
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Love this! Sunflowers are my favorite and are mostly what is in my flower beds and anywhere on the property they want to grow. Love watching them turn during the day plus all the birds and bees in them from time to time too. The big fields of sunflowers are amazing!. Seen a few.
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I’ll bet your sunflowers are brilliant! Can’t wait until the lesser goldfinches move in and enjoy our feast of seeds. Thanks for the comments Sue!
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All of your work shines Barb! You and sunflowers are a gorgeous combination. 👏🏻 Thanks too for sharing the special day! 🌻
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your beautiful comments warm my heart like the sun! Thank you Michele!
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You’re very welcome and thank you! ☀️
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Barb, this cheery post about sunflowers (my longtime favorite flower!!!) started my day off brightly! It is so interesting how they follow the sun — heliotropism, just like the daisies that I noticed doing that around our retention ponds about a month ago! Your sunflower journal page is so beautiful and delightful, I want to print it out and display on my art wall! I discovered that the farm valley near us has an annual Sunflower Festival, so I’ll be visiting them soon! And, the Heritage Garden where I volunteer has very tall sunflowers right now, so you’ve inspired me to sketch one this week. Thanks, as always, for the gorgeous nature inspiration!
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Karen! Brilliant! Thanks for including the word ‘heliotropism’ in your comments! I knew all that twisting and sun tracking had to have a name. That’s given me the next trail to follow, and today I will follow all the movements of a select few sunflowers 🌻 to rewitness this phenomenon!
Please feel free to copy and display anything in my sunflower post. I’d be honored! And I hope you can make to to,the sunflower festival, and find the most beautiful sunflower to sketch at the Heritage Garden!
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