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Sunflower for daughter's project

laima.udrelaima.udre Posts: 3
in Plants
Hello everyone! I'm posting this with hopes that you'll be able to give me some advice. 

I'm not good with plants, but my 4 year old's preschool gave every kid two sunflower seeds, pot and soil to grow their own sunflowers. 

It was doing pretty well to begin with, growing pretty fast, was in the little pot for two weeks. But it seemed like it was time to give the sunflower a bigger pot. 

So we re-planted it in this bigger pot, visible in the pictures. Not long after (after around 3 - 4 days) we noticed these brown, dry patches on the newer leaves, and it seems to be spreading to the older bigger ones too. 

In general the plant stays on the kitchen window sill, getting sunlight the 2nd half of the day. In the day of re-planting it, it stayed outside all day, because UK was having some lovely weather, so we thought the plant would benefit from that. 

The soil used when transplanting was mixed one (as far as i can understand, dry soil with a little bit of sand in it, apparently good for cacti.) We had it before for an avocado plant we tried to grow. 

Watering it when soil seems to be dry, checking every day. 

Hope to hear some advice, and thank you very much in advance. I really hope i can save this sunflower, as my daughter is excited to see it grow. 

Posts

  • wild edgeswild edges Posts: 9,361
    Are you feeding it at all? If the soil is cactus soil then it will be low in nutrients and you'd do well to add a few drops of liquid feed to the water now and then. Babybio or similar is ideal and just follow the instructions. Don't let the soil dry out too much between watering.

    Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people
  • laima.udrelaima.udre Posts: 3
    wild edges said:
    Are you feeding it at all? If the soil is cactus soil then it will be low in nutrients and you'd do well to add a few drops of liquid feed to the water now and then. Babybio or similar is ideal and just follow the instructions. Don't let the soil dry out too much between watering.

    Thanks, I will make sure to try this out! 
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 8,847
    Don't worry about the seed leaves (the bottom pair).  For the others, make sure you don't splash water onto the leaves when you water them. Direct sun on water droplets can scorch the leaves (the droplets act like little lenses and concentrate the light).
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • mrtjformanmrtjforman Posts: 331
    they are looking great however they will keep growing rapidly. Like jenny said don't worry about the seed leaves, they die off. What I would worry about is separating the two seedlings. If you leave them together too long their roots will intertwine making it hard to seperate them which you will have to do eventually. They will not do well staying together in one pot. Just be very careful seperating the roots, if a few break its ok but just do it slowly and gently.
    Maybe add come potting compost. Like mentioned I doubt cacti soil has much nutrients in it but they won't need much nutrients for the next 2 weeks as they are still small.
  • Zoomer44Zoomer44 Posts: 3,267
    When you split the plants and pot up into bigger pots use multi purpose compost, you can pick up a grow bag for £2 or less which serves the same purpose and use the compost each time you pot up.   

    Sink the plant into the bottom of the pot, and fill in with compost around the stem, this allows roots to grow from the stem. If you have a garden/yard and depending where you live you can start to harden off your plant to go outside.

    Sunflowers are hardy annuals, I live in the NW and it's warm enough for them to go outside here but your plants will need to be hardened off first. 


           
  • laima.udrelaima.udre Posts: 3
    Thank you all so, so much, very very grateful for all of this advice!!!  

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