It’s taken 8 long years for the breeding team of UK based Thompson & Morgan to perfect sunflower ‘SunBelievable Brown Eyed Girl’. Head plant breeder, Charles Valin’s vision was to breed a sunflower that was long-flowered and which could be used and enjoyed as a bedding plant as well as in containers. “This vision has become a reality; here’s a sunflower for beds and containers that will produce 1,000 flowers over a season”, states the company in a preview of the European FlowerTrials 2018 (June 12-15). “This brand new hybrid is sterile so it puts all its energy into flowering rather than setting seed. It’s super easy to grow and will bounce right back if you forget to water it. Bees love this unbelievable sunflower too.”
‘Amazing breakthrough in decorative plants’
In trade magazine Florist Business Paul Masters, T&M’s Head of Horticulture, said December last year to editor Emily Maltby: “Sunbelievable is an amazing breakthrough in decorative plants for the garden in an area that has been distinctly lacking in innovation in previous years. We expect this fabulous new sunflower to make a real impact in people’s gardens – its non-stop blooming will appeal to sunflower lovers and gardeners everywhere.”
Creating create a new hybrid that would not set seed
Charles Valin was always disappointed by the garden performance of traditional pot sunflowers. “I have crossed the very best with the very best to really boost the plant’s performance. I realised that it was the energy that the plant put into setting seed that was preventing it from flowering for long. So I aimed to create a new hybrid that would not set seed and would, therefore, carry on flowering all summer long”, he told to Florist Business.
