Sunflowers can be seen as the Earth’s way of smiling, but they’re not only beautiful to look at, they’re also practical.

The Herald recently chanced upon a garden that seemed to be out of a fairytale, where sunflowers grow in addition to various other edible plants .

Annetjie van Wyngaard said she grows sunflowers every year in her garden just to give it a bit of colour. She grows her flowers from bird seed and said she planted her current sunflowers in October.

She doesn’t only use her flowers for colour – when they eventually die off, she leaves them in the garden for the birds to eat and said there is nothing more special than watching a bird feast on a sunflower’s seeds.

Dead sunflowers in the garden are not up everyone’s alley though, and there are other ways to feed birds directly from a sunflower by making a sunflower bird feeder.

Make your own sunflower bird feeder:

• Dry two sunflowers (wait for the heads to turn brown and the backs yellow).
• Once the flowers are dry, cut the head and petals off and make two small holes in the centre of each, using a screwdriver or anything that is strong enough to make a hole.
• Place the flowers back-to-back with the seeds facing outward and thread wire through both sets of holes, leaving both ends sticking out on on side.
• Now twist the ends together, leaving a piece long enough to make a loop to hang on a hook or branch.
• Hang your feeder up somewhere safe for the birds to gorge on.

Growing sunflowers is as easy as planting bird seed and hoping for the best and in the process, birds will be attracted to your garden. While birds might take a liking to certain fruits and vegetables in a garden, they are also useful for keeping harmful bugs away from your plants.

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