These Teddy Bear sunflowers aren’t just fuzzy fun, they serve an important function by attracting bees to the garden.

Last summer my garden overflowed with a special kind of sunshine. Dozens of sunflowers greeted me each day and the variety of their cheerful sunny faces was dazzling.

There were the large single heads of ‘Skyscraper’ that soared on stalks almost 10 feet tall. These Frisbee-sized flowers were balanced by the shorter, multi-branched varieties that bloomed all summer long.

In October, long after the rest of the garden went into hibernation, the small yellow-gold blooms of ‘Maximillian’ steadily climbed upward on sturdy stems.

For centuries the Helianthus annuus has provided food, medicine and artistic inspiration. But even Vincent van Gogh would be surprised to see that sunflowers are no longer limited to the familiar golden palette. Gardeners now select from a large assortment of ornamentals with colorful names like ‘Ruby Eclipse’, ‘Lemon Queen’, ‘Sundown’, ‘Terracotta’ and ‘Italian White’.