Rachael Hearn is a nursery teacher and fundraising coordinator at Quince Tree Day Nursery in Essex. Below she writes about why she grew a sunflower with children at the nursery.
We were doing a project at Quince Tree Day Nursery in Essex teaching the children about how things grow. We then decided to take part in a challenge to grow a sunflower and raise awareness about mental health which affects not just adults but children as well. The idea of the challenge was to grow a sunflower so that you learn how to nurture and look after something just like you should look after yourself.
We then came across The Big Sunflower Project that raises awareness about centronuclear and myotubular myopathy when looking up sunflower challenges on the internet to take part in for fundraising and thought it was a good idea to take part in this challenge as well so that we could teach the children how everyone is different and that’s ok.
We were so happy to watch our sunflower grow as it grew so big it was 9ft 2″ and it was sad when we had to dig it up but we managed to save the seeds that we found in the sunflower so that we can grow another one next year and take part in more sunflower challenges.
Seed distribution for The Big Sunflower Project will begin again in early 2020, which will be the tenth year of the project.
The Big Sunflower Project is an initiative of The Information Point for Centronuclear and Myotubular Myopathy which aims to provide information about and raise awareness of these rare neuromuscular conditions. The project raises awareness by sending sunflower seeds to people who have never heard of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and by sharing participants photos online.
300 packets of seeds containing 50 seeds will be distributed in 2020 (one packet of seeds per applicant.) Project seeds are sent free of charge to participants but anyone wanting to make a donation for their seeds can do so via this website.
Donations are ploughed back into the project – they enable the project to send more seeds to more people and help secure the future of the project.
The Big Sunflower Project is not associated with any freebie websites. Please do not share information about the project with these organisations. The project does not have the capacity to deal with the number of requests generated by being advertised on these websites and if featured, it will force seed distribution to stop.
Anyone is welcome to apply for seeds but priority is given to families affected by centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, community groups and good causes. Previously, seeds have been donated to schools and nurseries, community groups, groups who work with disadvantaged people, hospices and youth groups to name a few, so as well as raising awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, the project supports the activities of these groups too.
Kindness was definitely the motivation in sending the seeds. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a small person with all this chaos going on right now and on top of that, not being able to be with your friends and watching your parents go off to work too. So, I decided to send a few surprise packages to schools that I learned were still open, in the hope it might make them feel a bit special and give them something to look forward to. Hopefully staff and parents will get some enjoyment from seeing the sunflowers too.
Photos submitted to the project are shared on the project social media pages (Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) and in The Information Point newsletter Our World. Photos are also sometimes used in applications for grants and funding, without which the project could not continue.
It is only possible to send seeds to the UK and Europe but the project wholeheartedly welcomes participation from anyone who wants to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy by growing a sunflower and people who buy their own seeds are welcome to join in (if you would like to do this, please get in touch advising where you will be growing your sunflowers, so you can be included on the project map.)
Amy took part in The Big Sunflower Project in 2019. Below she writes about her reasons for taking part.
My name is Amy, I am currently studying Digital Photography at University of Chester. At 16 I was diagnosed with centronuclear myopathy (CNM), Dynamin 2 (DNM2) mutation along with hypermobility.
I decided to take part in The Big Sunflower Project to be more involved in the community, as it is nice to have people that understand emotions and issues that go along with the condition. The sunflower project seemed like a great, proactive way to raise awareness about the condition that I myself and people I love have (people who I have only been able to meet through online community and pages that have been set up e.g. the sunflower project, CNM and myotubular page).
Documenting my sunflowers growth and creating little updates felt like almost a way to give something back to the amazing people that run the pages, websites and projects for our community. I wanted to take part in The Big Sunflower Project because without these pages I would not have been able to meet so many amazing people around the world and probably would have still felt very isolated and scared by my condition.
The Neuromuscular Centre is the Centre of Excellence for people with neuromuscular conditions. Based in Cheshire the charity supports people across the UK and sometimes further afield, providing physiotherapy, training and employment. Below Alison Evans from the centre writes about their involvement in The Big Sunflower Project during 2018.
Sunflower fever swept across the NeuroMuscular Centre (NMC) this summer! We have loved having the bright, showy blooms livening up our grounds (and some of our homes too) but, perhaps more importantly, we have greatly enjoyed working with our friends at The Information Point.
Numerous members of staff took on the challenge to grow sunflowers to help raise awareness for centronuclear myopathy and myotubular myopathy. We took over spaces in the NMC garden, the car park, the meadow, the greenhouse and even our Sales Manager’s bedroom, to cultivate our plants and turn our vista sunshine yellow.
As a centre of excellence for people with neuromuscular conditions, we were eager to help The Information Point raise awareness. Like Toni, we believe in the power of community. Everyone can flourish given the correct support and guidance and we think that the sunflowers are a fabulous metaphor for this.
At the NMC, we offer physiotherapy, support, training and employment to people with muscular dystrophy. We believe that peer to peer support is a key part of everyone’s wellbeing and that raising awareness of all neuromuscular conditions is an important baseline.
NMC Design+Print is a graphic design and printing company at the heart of the NMC; predominantly staffed, and managed by, people with MD. We provide a friendly, professional and creative service with a healthy serving of social value! The profits we make go toward the running costs of the NMC, so by working with us you also support the charity.
Together, we want to inspire young people with disabilities, and to encourage our community to be bold and strive for their dreams. We do this by offering graphic design training, numerous creative workshops, work placements and employment opportunities to people with MD, to help them launch themselves into a career in the creative industry or charity sector.
Partnering with The Information Point has allowed us to pool our audiences across a variety of social media platforms to reach a greater number of people affected by the conditions. It has also helped us to improve our gardening skills, learn more about centronuclear and myotubular myopathies (and as a bonus, we learnt the correct spellings!).
Winter is now drawing in but the project isn’t over yet! Many of us are drying our sunflowers to save the seeds for next year.
The NeuroMuscular Centre again took part in The Big Sunflower Project in 2019, this time using their seeds as part of a seed planting workshop held at the centre. The workshop aimed to encourage staff and service users to plant seeds for growing in the centre’s greenhouse, with the plants either being planted out in the grounds of the centre or sold to raise funds for the centre.
Project sunflower seeds were planted during the workshop as part of a community sunflower growing project over the summer months, with people paying £1 for a sunflower seed and a pot to support the work of the centre.
Entrants were encouraged to share photos of their sunflowers and certificates and were awarded for the tallest sunflower but also the sunflower with the most sunflowers. the first sunflower to bloom and the sunflower that flowered in the face of adversity, having tried to grow around the cycle racks at the front of the building.
In September, the centre’s ‘smallest’ tallest sunflower grower was delighted to receive a certificate, together with a prize of garden tools and a packet of seeds, so she could continue gardening.
To learn more about the work of the Neuromuscular Centre and NMC Design and Print, take a look at the short film below.
In 2019 The Big Sunflower Project was contacted by Leanne, a Can Do Sport Programme Coordinator at Leonard Cheshire, who was creating an accessible garden and outdoor classroom at Marketfield School in Colchester, as part of a programme called ‘Can Do Sport’, an activity-based skills course for young people aged up to 35 years old with disabilities, mental health issues or long-term health conditions.
Leanne explained that Can Do Sport is about encouraging young people to become more active and lead healthy lifestyles (gardening included). Participants do 16 hours and when achieving a number of outcomes they can earn a City and Guilds endorsed certificate.
The Marketfield School project was funded by the National Garden Scheme, which each year chooses a number of charities to donate to and Leonard Cheshire had been fortunate to receive some money to create a courtyard garden at the school.
Leanne says ‘The sunflowers were grown on a windowsill and then planted outside against a sunny wall. It was really nice and everyone gave their sunflower a name. Growing sunflowers for The Big Sunflower Project was a great way for pupils to learn about gardening and also to help raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy.’
Laceymay and her sons took part in The Big Sunflower Project for the first time in 2019. Below she writes about their experience of growing sunflowers.
So this year was our first year growing sunflowers. We were very lucky to receive some normal and some dwarf sunflower seeds. We got these absolutely free of charge through the post.
Me and my two boys aged 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 took part this year in our back garden. Both my boys seem to love being in the garden and have previously planted other things so I thought this would be perfect.
I let the boys plant their own seeds – they each planted a tall sun flower and I planted a dwarf sunflower so we could see the difference. They were both very excited to see them grow. For the first maybe six to eight weeks we kept them inside, until they were strong enough to go outside, to be replanted into bigger pots to grow and flourish.
The boys watered them daily and once they were outside there was no stopping them. The tall sunflowers flowered first, they were beautiful and the boys were both so pleased because we managed to get them both just over four feet. Not bad for our first attempt. Then maybe three weeks after the big ones had been harvested and died out, the dwarf opened up and it was stunning.
Not only have these sunflowers been great for me and the boys to get more active outside, they have also brought a lot more wildlife to the garden as well this year, since having the sunflowers we’ve had an increase in the number of butterflies and bees that visit our garden which is lovely to see.
We are very much looking forward to taking part again next year and also getting some others involved with us. Thank you for letting us be a part of this amazing event and I hope we can spread the word and get this recognised.
Seed distribution for The Big Sunflower Project will begin again in early 2019. Seeds for the 2019 project have been obtained from Kings Seeds at a large discounted price, with money donated to the project in 2018. Seeds have also been donated by Katrin Wurmitsch-Hohenwarter and her friends and family in Austria, who grew sunflowers during the 2018 project.
The Big Sunflower Project is an initiative of The Information Point for Centronuclear and Myotubular Myopathy which aims to provide information about and raise awareness of these rare neuromuscular conditions. The project raises awareness by sending sunflower seeds to people who have never heard of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and by sharing participants photos online.
300 packets of seeds containing 50 seeds will be distributed in 2019 – one packet of seeds per applicant. Project seeds are sent free of charge to participants but anyone wanting to make a donation for their seeds can do so via this website. Donations are ploughed back into the project – they enable the project to send more seeds to more people and help ensure the future of the project.
Anyone is welcome to apply for seeds but priority is given to families affected by centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, community groups and good causes. Previously, seeds have been donated to schools and nurseries, community groups, groups who work with disadvantaged people, hospices and youth groups to name a few, so as well as raising awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, the project supports the activities of these groups too.
Please note, The Big Sunflower Project is not associated with any freebie websites. Please do not share information about the project with these organisations. The project does not have the capacity to deal with the number of requests generated by being advertised on these websites and if featured, it will force seed distribution to stop.
Photos submitted to the project are shared here on the project social media pages and also in The Information Point newsletter Our World. Photos are also sometimes used in applications for grants and funding, without which the project could not continue.
It is only possible to send seeds to the UK and Europe but the project wholeheartedly welcomes participation from anyone who wants to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy by growing a sunflower and people who buy their own seeds are welcome to join in (if you would like to do this, please get in touch advising where you will be growing your sunflowers, so you can be included on the project map).
Earlier this year, I decided to write about my sunflower growing year. The UK had a fabulous hot summer, my sunflowers grew amazingly well, there was much to write about and many photos to share … I love it when a plan comes together.
To end my ‘year in the life’ posts I thought I would write a short review of the year and highlight a few of my favourite things from 2018 (soon you won’t be able to get away from reviews of the year, so I’m getting mine in first). If you haven’t seen it already, please also take a look at the project end of year report.
2018 was the eighth year of the project. The seeds that were sent to participants were purchased from Thompson and Morgan, at a large discounted price, with money donated to the project in 2017. Seed donations were also received from Mark Davies Seeds, Just Seed, The Real Seed Collection and L G Seeds. Support such as this is crucial to the survival of the project and I really cannot say thank you enough to everyone for their generosity, which has enabled the project to continue as long as it has.
The aim of The Big Sunflower Project is to raise awareness of the rare neuromuscular conditions known as centronuclear and myotubular myopathy, so I was over the moon to have people once again growing sunflowers in memory of Emil, who was diagnosed with myotubular myopathy and passed away in 2016. You can read more about Emil here on the project website.
This year the project also welcomed the family and friends of Marius in Austria. An email arrived in early April requesting seeds, explaining that Marius was born in August 2017 and diagnosed with myotubular myopathy. The family wanted to grow sunflowers in the hope that Marius would see them when he hopefully came home from hospital.
They went on to grow sunflowers, take photos and save their sunflower seeds, which will now be distributed to participants in The Big Sunflower Project 2019. You can view photos of the sunflowers that were grown in Austria on the project Flickr page.
This year the NeuroMuscular Centre in Cheshire also participated and were enthusiastic supporters on social media. Based in Cheshire, the charity supports people across the UK and sometimes further afield, providing physiotherapy, training and employment to people with muscular dystrophy. I was delighted to have them take part and to be able to share their story on the project website.
In July, I attended the Myotubular Trust and Zusammen Stark! family conference in London for people affected by centronuclear and myotubular myopathy. You can read about the conference below.
It was amazing to hear about the incredible advances in research into centronuclear and myotubular myopathy but also really quite lovely to walk into the venue and see balloon sunflowers everywhere. Thank you Myotubular Trust and Zusammen Stark! It was a truly thoughtful thing to do and my little heart wanted to burst at the sight of them.
Finally, this year, I was so happy to have my old school, Oldfield Primary School in Chester, take part in the project. The school is just a hop, skip and a jump from my childhood home. It is also where I went as a brownie and girl guide and this year my old guide leader, now a Governor at another primary school in Cheshire, also participated in the project with her school. It was particularly special to have both schools involved and to see how well their sunflowers grew.
So, just a few of my favourite things from The Big Sunflower Project 2018 but thank you to everyone who took part in the project this year.
Seed distribution for the 2019 project will begin in early 2019 and I look forward to growing sunflowers again with anyone who wants to join me then.
Linda lives in Hereford and has been growing sunflowers with The Big Sunflower Project since 2016.
This has been my third year growing sunflowers for The Big Sunflower Project. My daughter Georgina was born 30 years ago with centronuclear/myotubular myopathy, so taking part and raising awareness is something that is very close to our family.
Last year I saved the seeds as I was so impressed with the flowers and this year I started early hoping to have flowers for longer but the first batch of very healthy plants I put out were over night eaten completely by slugs.
So, very disappointed I stared again thinking I was going to be to late but to my surprise and considering it was such a hot summer, the sunflowers have been wonderful and are still flowering in November. I have been surprised that the large flowers, once they had finished flowering and were removed to save for next year (but not removing the stems), are still flowering too.
I think I started with four different types of sunflowers, so in the sales I have bought more seeds. Never knew there were so many different types of sunflowers, so I am looking forward to taking part in The Big Sunflower Project 2019 and growing as many types as I can.
I don’t have a garden just a half-plot allotment, which is only a few minutes walk away from home, where I grow soft fruit, vegetables and lots of flowers including sunflowers.
One of the varieties I have grown was the knee-high Music Box which did really well so I’ll be growing it again. As I don’t have a greenhouse I sowed the seeds in small pots on the windowsill at home. When I planted them out on the plot I sprinkled some organic slug pellets around them. The plants produced numerous colourful flowers over a long period and didn’t need staking.
It’s said that sunflowers bring out the happy child in everyone. They certainly do with me, which is why I grow them as one of my favourite flowers and I’m happy to support this good cause, which includes linking to this website on my blog.
In 2018 Mike wrote:
As much as I would like to grow impressively tall sunflowers my allotment is in the middle of a rather exposed site where wind damage to taller plants can occur, even when they’re staked and tied.
The past couple of years I’ve grown the knee-high sunflowers Music Box, which only grow to around 30″/75 cm and generally do well. If you’re hoping to take part and only grow in containers then these are an ideal variety. They have numerous flowers in various colours – usually yellow, some bi-coloured red/yellow and occasionally lemon – all with dark centres.
I grow them in an area I call sunflower corner where they flower from early July well into autumn. As with all the flowers that I grow they are attractive to bees and butterflies. I save some seed heads and leave others for the birds or to self-seed. This year I’ve saved a lot of these seeds to donate to Toni to send to participants in The Big Sunflower Project 2019.
In 2019 Mike wrote
I had a good year on my allotment with one of the highlights being the sunflowers which did really well. As usual I grew the knee-high variety Music Box which got rather overshadowed by taller ones so I’ll be growing them in a separate area next year. The taller Ring of Fire not only did well but four blooms that I picked and entered in one of the floral classes at my horticultural society’s annual show in early September won a first prize, much to my surprise and delight.
I collected and sorted lots of seeds from both of these varieties which I’ve sent to Toni for use in next years project. I’ll be growing them again along with the new to me variety Sonja which grows to around three to four feet with plenty of four inch dark-centred blooms which are golden-orange.
It never ceases to amaze me how sunflower seeds planted in the spring germinate and grow in just a few months, with the wonderful flowers not only making us smile but also providing food for bees, birds and butterflies.
The Big Sunflower Project 
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