PlantFiles: Maximillian Sunflower, Prairie Sunflower
Helianthus maximilianii

I am looking for native plants that deer like to eat regularly and naturally, and no, I'm not a hunter. I'm looking for native plants that deer prefer to eat, in an attempt to distract them from, eating from other gardens grown for human pleasures.

I read that this sunflower is a natural food source for deer, but DG's profile for this plant says it is deer resistant. Now, one of these sources is incorrect. Is there anyone who has grown this sunflower, that can varify if deer like to eat this plant, or not.

Thank you for your help.

I just pulled three long rooted starts easily out of a wet ditch. I notice they were growing in pure red sticky clay, the kind that dries as hard as bricks in summer. The plants were all stick straight and flowering heavily in the country. I am planting mine in the worst, unimproved clay "dirt" on the property line which is about as bad as what I pulled these out of. After reading other comments, I think they will flop in good soil, be invasive and get too tall, perhaps at the expense of blooms?

Great plant in the right place. Grows extremely fast, drought tolerant and puts on quite a show in the weening days of summer! I started with just a few roots from my mother's garden- now I have divided it several times over a three year period and spread it through-out my garden. Don't use this plant in small gardens...it has the potential to take over. Will self sow and spread through the roots.

After 3 years, a single plug grew to a 2-foot clump that produced over a dozen stems. In rich soil in full sun it grew to 12' high. The shape of the plant was much improved by a mid-season pruning.

This blooms very late in the season here in zone 6b, with the asters and mums.

Further to comment by straea:
Have grown this plant in three different perennial beds (all upgraded clay). I was actually assured by the nursery that it was not invasive. After two or three year it was advancing through the beds, in one case into the lawn and in another into an ornamental pine. It was so shallow rooted that removing all of it was quite easy. I now use clump-forming Heliopsis helianthoides (false sunflower) cultivars instead.

It was only after I planted this that I first heard about its potentially aggressive tendencies. Guess I didn't do enough research. Regardless, last year (its first year), planted in early summer from a good-sized but not huge container, it bloomed in a small clump on tall, wiry stems that didn't shade its neighbors as much as one might think from a tall plant. I enjoyed the pretty blooms and then birds enjoyed the seeds. Apparently it was expending most of its energy on its roots last year, because this year it came up in a clump over twice the size of last year's and has been spreading its roots outward over the past two months, sending up new sprouts as it goes. I wouldn't have planted it close to my Oriental poppies if I had known how aggressive it can be (and this is poor, dry soil, not its preferred good soil) and would recommend using it in a spot where its creeping root system would be a benefit rather than a potential drawback. By the way, my garden is very windy and it's in one of the windiest spots of all, and it didn't need staking, though it did tend to tilt its bloom stalks somewhat as it bloomed (which I personally thought added to its charm). I don't know if it adapts to frequently windy sites or what.

Their first year, they grew to about ten feet tall. Problem was they were not bushy so they looked scraggly with blooms only near the top. Should I pinch them?
Compared to a hybrid named Marc's Apollo growing next to them that was bushy, prolific and bloomed to the end of November, they were kind of sad. One more year of scraggly growth and they get yanked for more Apollos

Perennial sunflowers! Who can resist?

They're great in the late summer/fall. The first season (2001), they grew 6-8 feet but have been growing progressively smaller each subsequent season. Probably poor soil or something: my soil is heavy-ish clay with little nitrogen, and I don't have the energy to enrich.

They do self-seed vigorously, but the seedlings are easy to identify and pull out. Compared to chinese elm seedlings, these are no sweat.

Zone 8b, Southeast, TX in Broaddus:
In March, I found a 3" tall seedling under my bird feeder. Tom fills bird feeder with sunflower seeds.
I transplanted seedling to full-sun area in March -06. I placed a 6' tomato cage over it while small. Today, May 23-06 my Maximiliani Sunflower is 5' tall and has one bloom 4" across.

It's a keeper, and free!

Finches love this plant, so I leave a few for them. They blend in with it so well that you really have to look close to see them. As the flowers loose the yellow and turn brown in the fall, so do the finches! They do have a tendency to flop (the plant, not the finches) and seed too freely. Blooms September - October in my garden.

Use Maximaillian sunflower extremely sparingly in new plantings, particularly on good soil. It is very aggressive and will dominate a planting.

Striking plant to have in the garden! Three inch wide blooms stacked one above another on three feet of stalk.

The Maximillian sunflower is really beautiful in the Fall together with golden rod, purple and white asters, and orange butterfly weed.
They do require tying but it is very much worth it.

I was disappointed at first since there were no blooms all summer and the plants became quite large and were shading out some other plants in the same bed. Then in the fall they were covered with six inch blooms when not much else was blooming. I have since moved them to another spot where they will not shade out other plants and there is a fence behind them which I use to tie them up with a string since the heads are very heavy and they tend to fall over. There are so many blooms they are also good for cutting for indoor arrangements in fall colors.

Helianthus maximilianii is sometimes sold as a perennial. I started seed and now have transplanted about 30 seedlings, all of them now (mid-July) 12"+ and growing, vigorous,with long arching leaves. All are clearly related but have the sunflower trait of variations on a common theme.

No flowers have appeared; the catalog described this plant as a kind of flowering hedge. That's what I hope for!

Common Name: Prairie Sunflower

Very robust 6' to 8' plants, producing large quantities of single yellow blooms in late summer.