I've grown Mexican sunflowers in the past and loved them. The flowers are beautiful and the leaves feel like velvet. I had better luck with a shorter variety - Sundance. Grows about 3-4 feet tall and they did well in a large flowerpot. I had started seeds inside and planted out the seedlings when it was warm enough. They definitely were butterfly magnets! Here they are growing in a flowerpot.

That is really pretty.

I've also had luck with a dwarf variety called "Goldfinger". It can be a little harder to find but I know one of my seed catalogs carries it. I actually got it as a free bonus pack years ago. Great for butterfly gardens; that's for sure!

Yes, Butterflies seem to really love all the varieties. They are Butterfly magnets.

The colour of this red-orange is a favourite of mine. I bought a packet locally, but it gave out yellow flowers!! I did not know until then there was the yellow variety as well! So my friend from Mexico in June 2014 sent me seeds of her red-orange plant and it grew nicely this year. I have a few seeds stored for next season.

I tell you, the red in this flower is like no other. Very special red that seems to glow.


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Always a favorite down here.

Nice!! Looking for hummingbird/butterfly/bee etc flowers to start my flower beds.... these look like a definate "must include"!!

Glad to see the shorter varieties mentioned I grew the taller ones last year and never was able to keep the wind from blowing them over even when staked and caged. So I was looking for the names of the shorter ones, must try to locate "Goldfinger". Really like the yellow ones to Dinu!

@Seedfork it was Baker Creek that is selling the "Goldfinger" variety now. Here's a link: http://www.rareseeds.com/mexic... I think I'm going to have to buy some, too!

We have grown them for the past three years and save the seeds which they produce in abundance. Seeds in the ground do not survive our winters in Ohio. As everyone said, they are easy to grow, look spectacular and attract many butterflies. They love soil with lots of compost. I am surprised they are not more popular.

mellielong,
Thanks for the link, now to pick enough to go with the "Goldfinger" Tithonia to make an order. I like that they had the small 30 seed packets some places only had packets with 100 seeds.

Seedfork - seeds were from Burpee called - Sundance. Think I bought them in Lowe's or HD.


These are flowers I grew in a pot on my back deck. They love sun and heat. I haven't had good luck with them the past few summers - too rainy or too cool. Or both.

Well, I did find several sites selling "Goldfinger" Tithonia, but one site recommends it for back of the bed and says it makes a good hege. One other site says that it only grows to three feet but that is in England, and it says it normally grows to six feet. So I may have to try the "Sundance", Burpee says it only grows to 36 inches.
Found this link: Says this is a wind resistant short variety
http://www.stokeseeds.com/prod...

What? My "Goldfingers" never got over maybe 3 and a half feet. Maybe four feet if I stretched them. And that's in Florida where everything grows like crazy. By the way, I did want to say that from the time I sowed the seeds to first bloom was about two months. And they reseeded so I had at least three or four crops in one year.

Fiesta Del Sol does not appear to be available at the link I posted, anyone know where it might be found?

I've been a complete failure at getting these to grow from seed! Glad to hear that they are easy though, so I will try again!

When I grew the 'Goldfinger' variety, I direct sowed them in a line across a flower bed and most of them came up. Then again, this is Florida. It was the dry season though, so I had to get out and water them for a while. I sowed them in February and had blooms in April. Then, they direct seeded and I had a few more crops that all took about the same time.

I was just looking through my John Scheepers Kitchen Seeds catalog and they are selling the "Goldfinger" variety. Here's the link: http://www.kitchengardenseeds.... The catalog also mentions these are best directly sown in the garden.

I noticed on the Kitchen Seeds site that "Goldfinger" was described as being a large,almost shrub like plant.
mellielong, do the "Goldfinger" mexican sunflowers produce seeds that come true to the original plant? I think I will try some of them and just see how tall they grow here, three feet would be less than half the height of the Tithonia I grew last year.

I think "shrub like" is pushing it. Mine were between 3-4 feet tall and were actually pretty upright and not bushy, if you know what I mean. I didn't pinch them back like a lot of people do to plants when growing from seed so maybe that's just me? They did self-seed and all the subsequent flowers looked exactly the same as the first crop I had. And I had at least three crops and each looked the same.