Close-up of the Sunflower Ring of Fire by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd, featuring vibrant yellow petals with red tips, a rich brown center, and lush green leaves—perfect for ornamental panels, with sunlight enhancing its vivid colors and texture.
Close-up of the Sunflower Ring of Fire by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd, featuring vibrant yellow petals with red tips, a rich brown center, and lush green leaves—perfect for ornamental panels, with sunlight enhancing its vivid colors and texture.The Sunflower Ring of Fire by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd features yellow petals edged in orange-red and a dark brown center, set among green leaves—an eye-catching ornamental panel ideal for brightening any space.
Annual Pollinator AGM

Sunflower Ring of Fire

Helianthus annuus 'Ring of Fire' — AAS + Fleuroselect award winner

£2.50approx. 20 seeds

The dramatic solar-eclipse bicolour with mahogany-red rings blending to golden-yellow tips — AAS and Fleuroselect winner, pollenless, late-blooming August–October.

Sowing months
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Height
120–150cm
Spacing
45–60cm apart
Position
They need full sun, ideally receiving at least 6 to 8 hours of direct sunlight every day.
Soil
Sunflowers are heavy feeders. Work in plenty of well-rotted manure, garden compost, or a slow-release fertilizer before planting.
Grow guide
How to grow Sunflower Ring of Fire
Read the full guide →
About this variety

Mahogany-red at the base of each petal blending out through bronze to gold at the tip, round a dark chocolate disc, on flowers 12 to 15cm across. The effect is genuinely of an eclipse: a gold corona round a dark centre. It holds both an All-America Selections award and a Fleuroselect one.

It is deliberately late. Where most sunflowers want 80 or 90 days, this needs 100 to 120, which means an April sowing flowers in August and it peaks in September and October when the rest of the sunflowers have finished. That is the reason to have it. It is pollenless, so it is clean indoors, and it branches, giving several stems per plant.

Sow it in April and no later, or the flowers arrive too close to the frosts to be worth much. One seed per pot, because the taproot resents disturbance. At 120 to 150cm it wants light staking in an exposed garden, and the canes go in early while the stems are still flexible. Protect from slugs for the first fortnight after planting out.

Plant alongside

Sunflower Ring of Fire pairs beautifully with these cottage garden classics

Sunflower Vanilla Ice
Sunflower Vanilla Ice
£2.50
Rudbeckia Autumn Forest
Rudbeckia Autumn Forest
£2.20
Calendula Touch of Red
Calendula Touch of Red
£2.50

RHS Plants for Pollinators

This plant has been assessed by the Royal Horticultural Society and recommended as especially beneficial to bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Growing plants like this directly supports UK pollinator populations — something close to our hearts at Salle Moor Hall Farm, where we see the difference a cottage garden full of the right plants can make.

Learn more at RHS.org.uk →

RHS Award of Garden Merit

The RHS Award of Garden Merit is given to plants of outstanding excellence for ordinary garden use. To earn this award a plant must be of good constitution, available to the gardening public, and perform reliably across a range of UK growing conditions. It is one of the most trusted plant recommendations in British gardening and a genuine mark of quality.

Learn more at RHS.org.uk →