THE race to grow Huddersfield’s biggest sunflower is on.
It started when we featured Marian Hopkinson’s seven-foot stunner at Quarmby in the Examiner last week.
But her effort has been eclipsed by Howard Boothroyd’s whopping 11½-foot sunflower, growing in the garden of his Woodland Meadows home in Highburton.
And coming up fast on the rails is young pretender Codi Lewis, aged five, of Rastrick Common.
Codi, a pupil at Woodhouse Primary School, Brighouse, is a mad keen gardener and a chip off the old block.
His grandparents Rodney and Mai Dyson, of Ridgeway, Dalton, have just beaten other green-fingered residents of Kirklees to take the council’s prestigious Allotment of the Year title.
Codi has grown 50 sunflowers from seeds, the tallest of which hasn’t even opened yet. It’s already 9ft high and still growing.
He spends much of his free time helping his grandparents on their Long Lane allotment at Dalton.
Codi has already grown a range of vegetables and entered a prize carrot in the vegetable show at Ravensknowle Park last weekend.
Rodney, who entered a 4ft-long parsnip and a 3lb onion into the show said: “Codi has helped us in the garden since he was able to walk.
“He has grown all sorts of things and he’s already better than me. He grew the sunflowers in pots on the window sills and they kept getting knocked over, but they are all fantastic.
“I take extra care with all of my plants and vegetables, but his are still better!
“Codi can tell you the name of every plant in the garden. He spends his weekends and a lot of school nights in the garden or allotment, he really enjoys it.”
Another contender, at a whopping seven feet four inches tall, is the sunflower grown by Karen Pickles, of Bradley.
Mum-of-two Karen said: “I haven’t been doing anything special to grow it, my Dad who is a keen gardener gave me some seeds to give to the birds after one of his sunflowers died.
“I forgot about them and left them in my pocket, then when I was about to go out, I put my hands in my coat and realised they were still there, so I threw them outside.
“We did nothing and it just appeared.”
Karen’s Jack and the Beanstalk moment lead to the giant sunflower blooming in April.
Karen is due to get married in September and her soon-to-be-husband Jake is responsible for watering the flower everyday.
Karen said: “I couldn’t put it in the wedding flowers, it is just too big and would seem a shame to use it for just one day, maybe if we had some smaller ones.”
