Sunflower Ring of Fire

Mahogany-red at the base of each petal blending out through bronze to gold at the tip, round a dark chocolate disc, on flowers 12 to 15cm across. The effect is genuinely of an eclipse: a gold corona round a dark centre. It holds both an All-America Selections award and a Fleuroselect one.

It is deliberately late. Where most sunflowers want 80 or 90 days, this needs 100 to 120, which means an April sowing flowers in August and it peaks in September and October when the rest of the sunflowers have finished. That is the reason to have it. It is pollenless, so it is clean indoors, and it branches, giving several stems per plant.

Sow it in April and no later, or the flowers arrive too close to the frosts to be worth much. One seed per pot, because the taproot resents disturbance. At 120 to 150cm it wants light staking in an exposed garden, and the canes go in early while the stems are still flexible. Protect from slugs for the first fortnight after planting out.