Most people love sunflowers, but have you heard about the chocolate cherry sunflower? They’re very different from typical bright and sunny sunflowers because they’re dark in color and look so delicious you may want to take a bite out of them. However, don’t do that. You’ll find that they taste just like regular sunflowers, not like chocolate-covered cherries. These beautiful flowers, called Helianthus annus, have gorgeous maroon or burgundy petals with a dark brown center. They’re a boon for your garden because they attract great pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
They’re also very beautiful, and that doesn’t hurt, either. It’s easy to find the seeds to grow these unusual flowers. All you have to do is go to a gardening store or even buy them online. The great thing is that you can grow them outdoors or indoors. To get the best results, it’s recommended that you plant them in March, about six to eight weeks before the last frost. For best results, use topsoil in peat pots and sow the seeds about half an inch up to one inch deep. In mid-April to early May, you can start transplanting them outside when the weather and temperatures start to get warm.
If you sow the seeds outside, you’ll need to wait a bit longer for the weather to warm up. However, this would spare you the hassle of transplanting them. The seeds start germinating about 10 days after you sow them, and before long you’ll have gorgeous sunflowers everywhere. When you grow them outside, just scatter the seeds on the ground and cover them with about an inch of soil. They’re super easy to care for. Just water them regularly, especially keeping the seedbed moist until they germinate, and they grow well in all hardiness zones.
Here is a video about this gorgeous flower.