![]() ![]() If the leaves appear to be chewed you’ll need to inspect each leaf top and bottom to see if there are any eggs on the leaves. You can use a beer trap to get rid of slugs and snails or sprinkle some pet safe pellets around the base of the plants. Slugs and snails will eat sunflower seedlings so you’ll need to be vigilant while the plants are still young. There are many different ways to get rid of aphids including soap and water, neem oil or spraying them with the hose. AphidsĪphids are another common pest found on sunflower leaves and they damage the leaves by sucking the sap out of them. To find cutworms in your garden, gently dig the soil around the plant or if you have chickens, let them into the garden to eat them. Sunflowers are very susceptible to cutworms and they can do a lot of damage to young sunflower seedlings.Ĭutworms usually feed on the leaves at night and hide in the soil near the base of the plant. Insecticidal soaps and neem oil will get rid of sunflower beetles. ![]() Sunflower beetles are about 1/4 inch (6 mm) long, with brown and cream stripes.Īdult sunflower beetles create holes in the leaves, while the larvae make transparent windows in the leaves. To get rid of spider mites on sunflowers, spray the leaves with insecticidal soap or horticultural oil. They feed by sucking fluids out of the leaf, which leaves small dots on the leaves.Įventually the leaves turn yellow before drying up and falling off. Spider mites are tiny arachnids that live on the underside of the leaves. There are many different pests that can attack sunflower plants including: Spider mites If you spot the problem early you can usually take steps to fix it before your plants start to suffer. It’s a good idea to regularly inspect the leaves of your sunflowers to check for signs of damage or discoloration. The leaves can grow up to 12 inches (30 cm) long and each leaf is covered in coarse hairs. Sunflowers with red or brown petals usually have darker colored leaves. The color of the leaves ranges from light green to deep green. Watch out because at this point they are very tasty to birds and other seed eaters.Sunflower leaves grow along the stem in sets of two and the leaves can be heart shaped or triangular, depending on the variety. As the plant matures and eventually dies, the seeds will dry on the head. They will start out small and get larger over a couple if weeks. The disk flowers of sunflowers should have both male (pollen making) and female (seed making) parts, so you should just wait and watch and both your sunflowers should produce seeds in the disk part of the head. Here is a website that has some nice photos to illustrate what I mean The center of the sunflower head has tiny flowers called disk flowers and the big outer "petals" are another kind of flower called "ray flowers". If you want to reuse the soil, make sure you add some compost and then you can plant something that is very different from sunflowers (something that is not in the family Asteraceae).Īs for your second question, sunflowers are actually composites of many flowers. Your soil may also be lacking in the nutrients that the young sunflowers will need. Diseases and pests may be present that can do damage to young seedlings. Generally it is best to avoid planting the same thing twice in one pot or plot of soil.
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