With prayers and a little luck, this family grew the world's tallest sunflower Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY September 10, 2025 at 11:16 PM 0 After prayers and a little luck, the world's tallest sunflower on record now stands nearly the height of a residential telephone pole.
- - With prayers and a little luck, this family grew the world's tallest sunflower
Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY September 10, 2025 at 11:16 PM
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After prayers and a little luck, the world's tallest sunflower on record now stands nearly the height of a residential telephone pole.
A "monster bloom" grown in the backyard of an Indiana family beat out the previous Guinness World Record sunflower grown in Germany nearly a decade ago, the the global authority on all things record-breaking announced on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
"This truly is an incredible story. Guinness World Records just made the record official today!" Alex Babich, a landscape gardener from Fort Wayne who grew the plant and named it Clover, told USA TODAY.
How tall is the record-breaking sunflower?
"With some green-fingered support from his family," Guinness wrote in its announcement, the plant was confirmed to be 10.90 meters – about 35 feet and 9 inches – high, from the base of its stem to the tip of its highest flower.
According to the Indiana Native Plant Society, the plants are an "easy to grow species that tolerates a wide range of conditions and attracts a wide array of butterflies, bees and flies."
Alex Babich, a landscape gardener from Fort Wayne, Indiana, (on ladder at center) grew the world's tallest sunflower on record, Guinness World Records reported on Sept. 10, 2025.
Babich, a first-generation Ukrainian immigrant, grew the flowering skyscraper at his Fort Wayne home.
"I was actually trying to accomplish the state record and hit the world record," the 47-year-old man, who has been growing them for seven years said. Indiana's tallest sunflower previously was about 15 feet high, Babich said.
The sunflower breeder: Brian Moore.
It's German grower: Burkhard Grendel
What was the previous sunflower record?
Clover broke the previous Guinness world record by five feet, according to Guinness. The previous record-holding plant was grown by Hans-Peter Schiffer of Kaarst, North Rhine-Westphalia, in Germany.
That mammoth, which Guinness reported reached 30 feet and 1 inch, made the book "no fewer than four times in a five-year period from 2009 to 2014."
1 / 5See the world's tallest sunflower, grown in IndianaAlex Babich, a landscape gardener from Fort Wayne, Indiana, who grew the world's tallest sunflower on record, Guinness World Records reported on Sept. 10, 2025.How Clover got its name
Clover's seed originated in New Jersey and is a cross between a multi-head and a single-head, Babich said.
The green-thumb king said he grew the monster "smoking the record" with help from his 46-year-old wife Nannette; 14-year-old daughter Ayla, and 10-year-old son Keenai.
"When the flower was younger, about 10 feet tall, my son started picking a few hundred four-leaf clovers and put them on the leaf of the sunflower for good luck. I didn't think I could ever reach it ... but between my wife's prayers and son's clovers we made it."
And thus, the family named their beloved sunflower Clover.
Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X @nataliealund
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Meet Clover, the tallest sunflower in the world
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