Cheaper diet for sunflowers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32516, 28 January 1971, Page 3

Cheaper diet for sunflowers

There are cheaper ways of growing giant sunflowers than by “watering” them with champagne.

Mr Paul Harley-Green, of Castlecrag, New South Wales, has grown what he claims is the world’s tallest sunflower with the help of champagne. But about 20 years ago a Mataura resident grew a sunflower 13|ft high with the aid of milk and old tea leaves. Mr Harley-Green’s sunflower is 13ft 1 jin high. Mrs M. Mullen, of Bluff, who Is staying with her broI ther, Mr R. Hardy, in Papanui, read the story about the New South Wales sunflower in “The Press” on Tuesday. Yesterday she described how her mother threw milk and old tea leaves on the garden and produced her giant sunflower. Mrs Mullen said that her mother used to throw milk and tea leaves on to a special part of the garden where her brothers obtained worms for fishing bait. She said that there were more and bigger

worms in this part of the garden than in any other. One day her mother threw out a handful of sunflower seeds as well. Only one of them grew, and it grew in the part of the garden where the milk and tea leaves were always emptied. As the sunflower plant grew she continued throwing tea leaves and milk on the patch. “The sunflower grew so high we decided to measure it,” Mrs Mullen said. “The plant was 13jft high and some of the leaves were 14in long. The sunflower itself was 12in across and weighed 61 lb. We have a photo of one of my brothers standing on the roof of the house holding the head of it.” Mrs Mullen said that a rose bush and a fuchsia grew in the same patch and did extremely well. “The sunflower plant had quite a reputation among the local people, but I can’t remember any outsiders coming to see it." she said.