In recent years, sunflowers have come into their own as cutting flowers. There are many exciting new cultivars in a variety of shapes - from standard ray flowers to pompoms or fuzzy disks.

The plant sizes too range from dwarf to giant. As for colors, these too go well beyond the standard sunny yellow into white, lemon, bicolors, and even dusky burgundy.

Cut sunflowers are expensive to buy, so if you have the space, it's well worth the effort to grow your own.

Unique sunflower cultivars to grow:

Many of the newer sunflower cultivars are pollenless, which makes them perfect for cutting and bringing into the house.

Here are some of my favorites:

• 'Ring of Fire': An AAS (All-America-Selections) winner with striking 5-inch wide pollenless flowers; bi-coloured petals in dark red around a chocolate brown center taper off to golden yellow tips. Grows 4 to 5 feet tall; late-blooming.
• Sunflower 'Claret': An excellent cutting sunflower that keeps its intense velvet burgundy color in the summer sun. Main stem grows 6 feet tall; produces side-shoots with lots of blooms.
• 'Eversun': A deep yellow, early-blooming pollenless type with big 10- to 12-inch ray flowers around a dark brown disk; flowers produced on one main stem.
• Sunflower 'Teddy Bear': I'm generally not a fan of overbred flowers, but I've fallen in love with the sheer zaniness of this one. Has soft, fluffy, pompom heads that make handsome cut flowers; 2 to 3 feet tall with lots of flowers per plant. A perfect plant for a children's garden (and anyone who is young at heart). Does well in containers too.
• 'Giant Sungold' Sunflower: At 5 feet in height with lots of flower-bearing branches, this is a taller version of 'Teddy Bear'.

For more information, visit garden writer Yvonne Cunnington's sunflower page at http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/growing-sunflowers.html | For more information on growing sunflower from seed, go to http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/sunflowers-from-seed.html | Yvonne is the author of the book Clueless in the Garden: A Guide for the Horticulturally Helpless.