What is the right time and position?

Position is easy: full sun. After all these are sunflowers. They can handle a little shade, but you'd want to be putting them in a spot where they'd get at least 7 hours of sunlight. Anything less, you might not be very successful.

The right time to plant varies according to your location, but in Australia you can start planting in the southern states from around late August, through to about late January/ early February. In the northern states you could even plant them in the middle of June in very warm areas such as northern Queensland, but in places like southern Queensland you probably better off form early August. They are frost tolerant, so, in places affected by frost, you don't have to worry in the same way as you do with tomatoes, but having said that, they don't really respond too well to long periods of cool weather, so wait till you get regular 20C+ days. You should also plant so you can see the flowers. In the southern hemisphere they will face north, and will follow the suns movement throughout the day, so if you plant them to the south of any area in which you would like to see them then you'll be cooking with gas.

In the northern hemisphere they face towards the south, but you would have probably already figured that out by now.

Giant Russian Sunflower

How to plant?

Planting of sunflowers is always done by seed, and generally direct sowing is the preferred method. You can raise them on heat trays or in greenhouses in cold areas but transplant them before they get to big, as they don't seem to like the transition very much, and often movement like this will stunt their growth.

With direct sowing, I recommend planting quite thickly, as you are going to have to contend with birds and mice as well as snails and slugs when they are first sprouting, I wouldn't even bother much with thinning them out as they don't seem to mind a few restrictions in space, as long as all their other requirements are met. In fact, sunflowers grown alone fall over a lot more during periods of high wind, though some like the giant Russian and some multi-flowering Mexican varieties seem to cope all right on their lonesome.

Sunflowers can also be incorporated in the vegetable patch, growing well with beans (both bush and climbing, with the climbing ones using older sunflowers as poles on which to twirl and climb) and tomatoes. They don't do well near potatoes.

Some varieties to look out for…

You might like to try a few different varieties, planted at different intervals to get a longer period of growth. I prefer the single flowering varieties such as Sunfola, Giant Russian, Empress and Evening Sun, but there any many, many varieties to choose from. Take a look at one of the seed sellers pages on the left-hand side of the page to help you decide. Eden Seeds have all these varieties.

Good luck, and enjoy.