How to plant a sunflower using a Green Tones growing kit

Eco-friendly homeware business, Green Tones, sells recycled bamboo fibre products, including individual seed kits. These include everything you need to grow a selection of plants, even the pot. Here's how I used them.

I have been a Green Tones customer for some time now, and particularly love their colourful, rainbow pots (they’re perfect for my succulent plants). When they asked me to collaborate with them to demonstrate using some of their eco-gardening range, I jumped at the chance! They are a planet-kind brand with a focus on recycling materials rather than putting them into a landfill. These are values that are important to me too, and I recognised this synergy between our businesses.

If you like the sound of their products too, use my discount code, TALK10 for 10% OFF their website!

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From time to time they send me products to use in my garden and conservatory however I wish*. This month, they gifted me a couple of growing kits – to grow rocket and sunflowers. They also have kits that have everything you need to grow chillies, basil and radishes, as well as “build your own” options. The pot included with each set is made from recycled bamboo fibre. This fibre has been ground out of either end-of-life bamboo products (e.g. decking), or the offcuts from their production. This is then mixed with corn starch, resin for binding and food-grade dyes. The bamboo fibre is BPA free – how great is that.

These little kits provide a great introduction to sowing seeds and are a perfect activity to do with children. I enjoyed using mine and even recorded a little reel on Instagram to show my followers. See the reel here.

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Here’s how I planted a sunflower using the kit:

Kit contents:

• 8cm, reusable, bamboo-fibre pot. This one comes with a yellow one!
• Coir disc – peat-free growing medium.
• Seed packet – sunflower seeds and instructions.

Method:

1. Turn the plant pot over and poke out the drainage hole. I used an awl, but a tent peg or pencil works too.
2. Place the coir disc in a leak-proof container. Gradually add water until the coir is rehydrated. It will expand slowly until crumbly and “soil-like”.
3. Spoon the (damp) coir growing medium into your recycled bamboo-fibre plant pot.
4. Poke a small hole in the potting medium, about 1” deep.
5. Place one sunflower seed in the hole and lightly cover over.
6. Place in a warm, sunny spot and keep moist, but not wet.
7. Once the germinated seed has reached approximately 30cm tall, repot into a larger pot.
8. These sunflowers will grow up to 2mtrs tall, so you may need to repot it again, or plant it into the ground.
9. Stake for support, as required.

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Green Tones give you a few “spare” seeds in the seed packet, so I sowed these in some more small classic pots I have. I chose black, light blue, orange and red. Follow me on Instagram to see the progress of the sunflowers and rocket seeds I sowed.

Enter TALK10 at the checkout when shopping on greentones.co.uk, to receive 10% OFF the entire range.†

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* This is a paid partnership with Green Tones. From time to time I talk about their products on my Instagram account. I will always indicate a paid collaboration or gifted product with a hashtag (e.g. #gifted) or branded partnership label. I only partner with brands that I have a genuine interest in, and that I think the Talking of Plants community will be interested in too.

† I receive a small commission from Green Tones, for all orders that use my discount code, TALK10.