How I Shade My Garden From The Afternoon Sun: Sunflowers For Shade

The worst sun in a desert garden is the afternoon sun. That low western light cooks everything on that side of my beds. For years I've blocked it with something free that comes back on its own every year, sunflowers. Look at these! The tallest are around 15 feet, taller than my 10-foot shade structure. This whole line runs along the west side of my beds and it blocks the afternoon sun all summer. It cost me nothing. I'll show you how I use them to shade my garden, where to put them, and how to keep them going through the heat. For this to work, you have to have branching sunflowers. The big single stalk type, the mammoths, or the ones grown for edible seed, they put up one stalk, one head, and then they're done. They don't create real shade. You want branching types. The ones I grow are common sunflower, high noon, sun dancer, and a sun forest mix. If you get a seed packet with a mix like this, the smaller seeds are often the branching types. I've even pulled over on the side of the road and grabbed seed from ones I liked. Try a few different varieties and you'll figure out what works in your garden. Anywhere the afternoon sun is hot, you can grow a few sunflowers to block it. You'll probably want to put them on the side your hot afternoon sun comes from, the west or the southwest. This works in any hot climate. It doesn't have to be Arizona. The seeds, they're easy to plant straight in the ground. I plant them as the soil warms up in the spring. Within a month or two, right as it's starting to get hot, you look up and they're huge. They grow right alongside the heat, so the shade shows up just when you need it. Each plant will last a couple of months or so. I usually have volunteers coming up at different stages, ready to take over a spot when one finishes up or topples in the monsoon. If you want to make sure you've always got some ready, plant a few seeds nearby when the current ones reach full size, so they can get growing before you need them. The planting window is long here, February through August. One of my favorite things about sunflowers is that after the first year or two, they basically plant themselves. The birds love eating the seeds and always drop some, and then I get volunteers popping up all over the place. So when you start seeing those volunteers, that's your cue. It's time to plant more wherever you want them. You can also carefully move the volunteer seedlings to wherever you want some shade. If you want to save your own seeds, let the heads fully develop on the plant. The back of the head turns yellow and then brown. That's when you cut it off, put it in a paper sack to finish drying. The birds will probably strip the heads clean, so cover a few of the larger heads with tulle or a paper sack to protect the ones you want to keep. Young seedlings still need water to get going, even though the big established plants barely need any. If it just rained or rain is coming, that's a perfect time to put a few seeds in. I grow mine on the outsides of my beds in the wood chips in poor soil with hardly any extra water. They pull what they need from the nearby beds. Pay attention to how close the seedlings are to each other. If they're too close together, those plants are going to stay small. Thin them out and give each one room to get to full size. A fun bonus, these double as a living trellis. Right now I'm growing bitter melon up one of these climbing sunflowers. In the past, cucumbers and cantaloupe have found their way up the tall plants. Young plants seem to have some pest problems, but I leave them alone and almost always the beneficial insects take care of them for me. You might see powdery mildew on some of the leaves. If I spot it, I pull them off right away. This time though, I left some on so I could show you in this video, and now it's spreading more. Don't be like me, take them off as soon as you see them. As they grow, if you need to remove lower branches to get them out of the way or keep them from blocking other plants, just cut them off. And because we get crazy monsoon winds, and then I bungee the tall ones to it so they don't topple in our storms. One more thing, when a sunflower is finally done, don't pull it out. That root ball is huge. Just cut it off at the base and let the root rot in place. You can pull that little stub out in a month or two if it bothers you. Sunflowers have become one of my favorite parts of my summer garden. They give me free shade through the worst of the heat and they bring the whole yard to life. The flowers pull in pollinators and the birds love the seeds. I've got lovebirds and lesser goldfinches in here all the time. In a hot desert summer, that beauty and that life in the garden is everything. Take a look at your own yard. Where does the afternoon sun hit the hardest? Plant a few sunflowers here and let them grow. Have you grown sunflowers for shade? Give me your tips in the comments. I'd love to hear what's worked for you.