The Sunflower Festival at Pepper Ranch in Immokalee is a much-anticipated Fall event since its inaugural in 2014. The Fall viewing during October 8-12, 2025, was scheduled while the flowers are expected to be in full bloom. Though the month of October is supposed to be the end of the rainy season, showers and thunderstorms with mostly cloudy skies showed up the entire week. With a bit of luck, the sunflowers came out in a full blaze of color, providing visitors a rare panoramic enjoyment of Florida’s native sunflower. Visitors to the park did not mind driving or hiking through the muddy trails as hundreds of thousands of sunflowers provided the inspirational vistas of yellows and gold.
The Southeastern Sunflower (Helianthus agrestis) is native to Florida. Outside of Florida, it is only found in Thomasville, Georgia. This species grows up to just six feet tall with as many as 15 sunflower heads per stem. Often referred to as “prairie sunflower,” they grow ideally in the wet pinelands and flooded grasslands of Pepper Ranch. Like most sunflowers, for optimal growth, they require at least six hours of sun a day, and as an annual species, they only flower in the late summer to early fall months.
Most sunflower species are primarily pollinated by bees, as was evident during the viewing, as busy bees moved from flower to flower, having a field day even on a cloudy day. Another observation upon our mid-morning arrival was that the sunflower blooms were facing the sun, which is part of their charm. Sunflowers are known as “solar trackers,” moving their blooms to face the sun. They have a built-in internal clock called “heliotropism.” The sunflower slowly turns west as the sun moves across the sky, and during the night, it slowly turns back east each day to begin the cycle again.
For a gloomy, cloudy, and unpredictable week, the radiance of the fields of bright and happy-looking sunflowers brought cheer, beauty, and an uplifting message to all the visitors. With the ‘sun’ in its name, no wonder the sunflower has always been a symbol of something positive and happy.
Pepper Ranch is located in northeastern Collier County, west of Immokalee, and is approximately 2,700 acres. It was acquired by Collier County in February 2009 as part of Conservation Collier. When Conservation Collier acquired Pepper Ranch in 2009, it was overgrown with invasive and exotic vegetation. Pepper Ranch Preserve offers hiking trails, horseback riding trails, picnic areas, and camping from November through April.
A young bovine enjoys the attention during the sunflower festival.