The Guinness World Record For Tallest Sunflower Has Been Broken. Meet The Family That Grew It

End-of-summer gardening projects are in full swing, with many gardeners opting to grow picture perfect sunflowers just in time for fall. While some of us may choose to visit sunflower farms or even plant our own, one family took it to the extreme. Meet the Babich family from Fort Wayne, Indiana, who just broke the Guinness World Record for the tallest sunflower. This is a feat that hasn't been topped since 2014, when a sunflower 31 feet tall was bloomed in Germany. After fleeing Ukraine in 1991 due to the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Alex Babich immigrated to the United States, bringing the love of his country's national flower with him. He didn't start his passion for growing this yellow beauty until seven years ago, when he decided he wanted to beat the world record. With the help and support of his wife and children, his dream became a reality on September 10, 2025, when his 35-foot-9-inch-tall flower, which he named Clover, won the world record. 

However, this wasn't Babich's first win. He smashed the U.S. record for tallest sunflower in 2022 and 2023. Still hoping to achieve a world record, Babich grew Clover with a seed from the world's second-tallest sunflower. Over the year, he kept the family's motto in mind, "Plant a Seed. Water with Love. Watch Hope Grow." The entire family watched as it sprouted up, adding cleverly planned engineering work – and a little bit of luck — to ensure it continued to thrive while standing so tall. 

The Babich family consists of four members: husband Alex and his wife Nannette, their daughter, Ayla, and their son, Keenai. The process started off with the patriarch knowing that this popular flower should grow from a seed and not be bought as a seedling. Taking his seed picks, Babich cross-pollinated it with a wild Nebraskan sunflower. However, he didn't just choose any sunflower from his growing seeds. Instead, he chose the strongest contenders who had higher chances of growing extremely tall and surviving. But first, he treated them all the same, growing them indoors near a grow light during the best time of the year to plant sunflowers, early spring.

During the seedling stage, Babich began plotting his next steps: the support structure. He followed a similar build he had sketched years ago on a napkin. As the flower grew, each family member pitched in to water and care for it. The naming of this huge flower has a very sweet, family origin story. "One day I was working in my garden, when I noticed my son climb up onto the structure and place something on the leaf of this sunflower," Babich explained to Guinness World Records, "He told me that he finds four-leaf clovers all over our yard and started placing them on the leaves of this sunflower for good luck. That's when I decided to name it Clover." If you want to learn more about the Babich family and their incredible sunflower-growing journey, check out the full-length documentary, "Bloom," which is set to release at film festivals in 2026.