pollen free sunflowers

Terri Anderson

Sunflower Solar Power seeds, bought from Dobies. Carefully protected from slugs and they're growing well.
Now found out from another site that they're pollen free, although might attract bees for the nectar it's a wasted effort without pollen. Also the seeds won't ripen so birds won't be interested. There was no mention of this on the Dobies site, all the wildlife friendly boxes were ticked.
Is this true? If so I think I'll pull them up.

josusa47

I'd leave them.  Nectar is food for bees and other flying insects, with or without pollen.  Any plant is food and shelter for caterpillars and other mini-beasts, which in turn are food for birds.  And it's a bit late in the season to be filling the gaps left by removing plants as big as sunflowers.  You can buy sunflower hearts for the birds with the money you save by not buying replacement plants.