Finding a place for tihonia plants

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/04/2019 (2386 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A long time ago in my Birtle garden I grew tithonia and I always meant to grow this flower again but have never got around to it. It is a large plant I haven’t been willing to dedicate the space it needs in my usually crowded small-town gardens.

As I plan my 2019 garden I am trying to figure out where I can put it in my relatively small and crowded garden, and I had better find a suitable spot because on impulse I bought the seed the other day when I was perusing a seed display in our local hardware store.

Tithonia plants take up a lot of space, growing from one to almost two meters in height and each plant having a width of close to a meter. Where can I put it? After careful consideration, I think I have found the perfect place to plant just a few tithonia plants.

There is a hot dry flower border on the south side of mature spruce trees in our side yard; it contains several native plants and other drought resistant perennials, such as heliopsis, lilies, solidago and yellow verbascum. I like to add a few tall annuals to this bed to provide late summer color and the last few years I have used a tall red salvia for this purpose.

Although the salvia plants looked good and were the right size, they suffered from the dry conditions of the bed. I was constantly watering them as they were not nearly as drought-proof as their companions; perhaps tithonia will solve this problem

Tithonia is a member of the sunflower family and is often referred to as Mexican sunflower. Although the large daisy-like blooms can be orange, yellow or red. I prefer the red variety called “Torch” and the plant does resemble a huge torch when in full bloom the flower color is that vibrant.

Tithonia flowers are not as large as sunflower blooms; they only get about six to eight centimeters across. Not only will they provide good color in the border but I am hoping they will be just the right size to use as cut flowers in flower arrangements for our local autumn horticultural show tithonia flowers are long lasting cut flowers.

I will only need to sow a few seeds I will only have room for a few plants – I will donate any extra plants to our Horticultural Society plant sale in May and let some other gardeners try this interesting plant. If I had the space or had a large rural garden, I would plant a bank of tithonia.

They look great at the back of an expansive perennial or mixed border, planted along a fence or shed, or mass planted in a large island bed. Tithonia would be a useful plant for those rural gardeners with expansive landscapes.

The growth habit of tithonia is not unlike that of other sunflower plants. The stems and branches are sturdy and the foliage is hairy like the leaves of sunflowers which makes the plants unattractive to deer. It is a rather rough, rugged looking plant and is best suited for placement at the back of a border luckily its height makes it very suitable for such a location.

The flowers are produced on long stems and deadheading of spend blooms will keep the plants flowering right up until frost. Tithonia are not frost-tolerant and it does not like cool temperatures it performs best during the hot days of mid-summer. Tithonia plants should not be planted outdoors until temperatures are consistently above 10 C.

Tithonia is easy to grow from seed. I simply scattered the seeds on top of some soilless mix (sterile of course) and then enclosed the container in a plastic bag to keep the planting medium moist. The seeds need light to germinate so I placed the container under the lights in my light garden, which provided the necessary heat to encourage germination. Most of the seeds germinated within a week. I planted them in late March.

When the seedlings got their first true leaves, I transplanted them into individual pots and gave them as much light as I possible first in the light garden and later in my cold frame on the back patio. I didn’t want the plants to get leggy. Potting them individually will enable me to transplant them into the garden with minimum root disturbance.

Tithonia likes full sun, and a well-drained soil, both of which this particular perennial border provides. I will water the transplants regularly until they get established and then only during really dry weather these plants are very drought-tolerant. I will space them about 50 cm apart.

I don’t think I will try one in a mixed container although some reports indicate tithonia can be used in this fashion. I already have my container arrangements planned and anyway, I think this plant is a bit too coarse for container use.

I hope my experiment growing tithonia is successful. I have not grown it in in my present garden before. As the 2019 outdoor gardening season arrives, I hope you grow something a bit different in your garden; you might even try tithonia!