All righty, then. A month has gone by, so I guess no one has a favorite double sunflower. Time for this post to start slowly sinking downward into the murky depths of obscurity. Now it will.

TM

Hold your horses!

It's been a very busy fall, plus we took a 2 week trip to Greece (Athens & two islands)

We finally got caught up with chores, "dismantling" the garden, cutting wood, etc.

I've been growing sunflowers for years and tried just about all kinds with fair-to-good results. Moulin Rouge has always been a big seller at the Farmer's Market, plus Soraya, Earth Walker, Razz-ma-tazz and so many others.

However, we found that the petals for those varities don't really hold up well and fall off after just a few days.

We decided to grow Golden Cheer this past summer and was totally impressed by the huge, double flower, it's productivity, and lasting as a cutflower.

We've decided to go with the doubles since they last and sell-out at the FM, more so than the petal variety.

We're going to try Giant Sungold, another double. Teddy Bear while a double is a dwarf variety. We're doing more research on other doubles, but they don't seem to be that many available.

Tommy, thanks for the feedback on the Golden Cheer. I have those on my list for next year and I will bump up the number I order now that I know they worked for you. GeoSeed says 70 days for them, which is pretty darn good and maybe three weeks sooner than Giant Sungold.

I did Moulin Rouge for the first time this year, and, like you, found that they were pretty delicate. Customers liked them a lot, though. I think I'll try the Infrared mix next year. I've settled on Sunrich Orange for my standard regular sunflower, and some ProCut Orange to get a little jump on them.

I appreciate your taking the time to answer. I had about given up. :-)

ThinMan

I believe the Sunrich & Procut are single-stem varities. Do you have a large area where you grow? We have limited space to devote to sunflowers so we grow the branching types.

I hear Double Quick is a great double sunflower that is very early, but alas is a single stem variety. I'd like to grow a early-producing double for earlier cuts until Golden Cheer kicks in. I may consider it.

Happily, space is not a problem for me. Time, yes, space, no. I have stuck mostly with single stem suns, thinking that I might have trouble getting long enough stems with the branching ones. But if you're using them, that must not be much of a problem.

As I mentioned in my original post, I've grown the Double Quicks, but a lot of the flower heads ended up being really convex, almost bowl-shaped. They are nice and early though.

Golden Cheer is a multi-branching variety. Supposedly you can pinch the plant when small and get more stems, but I didn't and still got quite a few stems out of each plant. The size of the flowers are quite large even after the main ones are cut.

This year was the first time growing GC and I was more than impressed and happy with its production, flower size and long-lasting attributes. I was selling them for $2/stem at a "non-upscale" market and they were a hit. You can probably get more at a larger market.

I may try some Double Quicks. Did they all bloom at the same time? Did you stagger plantings to prolong the season?

Not sure what you consider by stem length but Golden Cheer's stems were more than ample . . . even the second flush was good.

Two bucks a stem sounds great and more than I could probably get, even for nice big doubles. My market is considered fairly upscale, but a dollar a stem is about it for sunflowers.

I do stagger plantings so I don't remember any problem with all the DQs popping at the same time. I usually try to put in a row of each variety every 4 or 5 days from June 1 through mid-July.

As far as stem length, 2 ft is the most I ever need for bouquets, but I like them to be 3 ft for straight bunches just for dramatic effect.

Golden Cheer's stems avg. about 16-18" which I find very adequate for selling by the stem.

I imagine you can get 2-3' with the single stem sunflowers which is great, but GC's stem length works well at my markets.

Thinman.
Double Quick and have had lots of success with it. I also like The Joker, when it behaves itself. Teddy Bear was major flop for me. Haven't tried the others you mentioned but will try them out in 2011.
Cheers Kim
Billabong Fresh Flower Farm

Thanks a lot, Kim. Maybe I'll have to give the DQ another try. I think I still have some seeds for it.

Being a Texan, are you a fan of the Arnoskys? I don't suppose you're very close to them. It's a big state.

TM