Amy grows one better with biggest sunflowers

Green-fingered residents young and old rose to the challenge and couldn’t wait to tell us all about their biggest blooms.

We asked you to get in touch after five-year-old Holly Keable and her two-year-old sister Amber grew some towering nine-foot sunflowers at their Woodhouse home.

The girls’ thought they might have grown the tallest sunflowers in Sheffield but a few plants have pipped them to the fence-post.

And out of everyone who contacted us about their impressive plants, little Amy Ibbotson’s sunflower towered above the rest - standing at 11 feet high.

Three-year-old Amy, from Dronfield, grew the stalk in her grandparents Sandra and Malcolm Ibbotson’s garden on Holmhirst Drive, Woodseats.

“We planted the seeds in April when we had that week of beautiful weather,” said Sandra, 62.

“Malcolm and I often look after Amy and we wanted to get her interested in gardening because we love it ourselves. She put two seeds in the ground and they have both shot up.”

Amy’s sunflowers have now reached 10 feet and 11 feet in height.

Sandra said: “It was a bit of shock to see them grow so big. She could not believe it when they started to get taller than her.”

And Amy is not the only one who has planted some lucky seeds - Ecclesfield residents Carol and Thomas Hancox were shocked when a routine clear-out resulted in a seven headed sunflower.

“Thomas and I keep cockatiels and, when he has cleaned out the cage, Thomas usually scatters any left over bird seed on the lawn,” said Carol, 60, of Colley Road.

The Hancox’s plant is not huge when compared to Amy’s giant but it has a seven flowers on just one stalk.

Other top trees include nine-year-old Victoria Beal’s sunflower, which has reached a whopping 9ft 3.

“It won the trophy for tallest sunflower at Wharncliffe Side School in July, when it measured about 8ft 6,” said Victoria, from High Bradfield.

“But now it has reached 9ft 3.”

Other contenders included Maureen Durbar’s flower, which reached over 10 feet in her garden on Parsonage Close, Mosborough, while Brogan Winter grew a 9ft 8ins flower at her home in Birklands Avenue, Handsworth.