In the Dutch city of Enschede, the tallest sunflower in the Netherlands stands at almost eight metres high. Jeroen van der Velde has been growing these towering beauties for several years now, with the ultimate goal of breaking the world record for the tallest sunflower.
Jeroen van der Velde has been growing sunflowers since 1996 and has been trying to break the Dutch record for a few seasons. The record, which has stood at 7,76 metres since 1986, has finally been broken by Van der Velde with his 7,91-metre flower grown in the garden at his house.
Despite this massive achievement, his end goal has not been reached. Van der Velde still wants to beat the world record of 9,17 metres, set by a sunflower grown in Germany.
Earlier this year, Van der Velde noticed his blooms slowly exceeding their personal best of 7,12 metres. To provide the sunflowers with support, the Enschede resident started a crowdfunding campaign to get scaffolding.
After successfully raising enough money to get the scaffolding, Van der Velde could more easily reach the top of the flowers and secure them so they wouldn’t topple. The height of the supporting scaffolding can also be extended to support the growing flowers as they inch towards the world record height.