16 foot sunflower towers over the competition!

A sunflower grown in Wincanton has scooped top prize in Otter Garden Centres annual sunflower growing competition.

The lofty plant grew to an impressive 16ft in height – about nine-tenths the height of a full grown giraffe.

The winner, ten-year old Jonah Sturgess grew nine sunflowers from seed at his great uncle Malcolm Mitchell’s house which he visits regularly, and where he likes helping in the garden along with his sister Esme.

Malcolm explained how Jonah grew his winning sunflower . “We collected the free seed packet from the garden centres – there were nine seeds in all. Jonah started them off in little individual pots. We’d just bought a greenhouse from Otter so we kept them in there,.

“When they were around 5 inches, Jonah planted them out into the garden alongside the fence. We lost one that snapped but all the others grew into mature sunflowers.”

“We had to ask for help from the neighbour once it grew over six foot, as we needed to tie it up, and their pergola was the ideal anchor!”