Mr Fothergill's Seeds are putting their weight behind a Europe-wide celebration of the once-humble, but now trendy sunflower by introducing nine new varieties, including brand new 'Sunny Babe' and 'Buttercream' F1, to their range for 2015.

The initiative comes from the home gardening division of Fleuroselect, the organisation that assesses new flower varieties from around the world to determine their suitability for European conditions.  Mr Fothergill's Tracy Collacott is the sole UK seed company representative on the Fleuroselect Home Gardening committee.  2015 has been declared the Year of the Sunflower by the organisation, which hopes to see them grown in gardens everywhere.  Easy to grow, great favourites with children and now available in so many different colours and plant forms, sunflowers are really versatile subjects for modern gardens.

Sunny Babe is a multi-stemmed variety, producing an abundance of golden orange 3-4in wide single heads on plants which grow up to 5ft.  ‘Buttercream’ F1 has soft, butter-yellow heads which are pollen-free.  Again multi-stemmed and reaching around 5ft, its blooms are slightly larger at around 6in across.  Both varieties are great for garden display and for cutting.

Other F1 hybrid sunflowers being introduced by Mr Fothergill's include ‘Infrared’ in a range of rich bicolour shades, ‘Summer Breeze’ with unusually green centres and ‘Copper Queen’, a superior 'take' on the traditional sunflower and pollen-free.