Sunzilla declared after seed-spitting fun
September 22, 2026 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Prize-winning contestants and their entries in the 2026 Hunt for Sunzilla, the Monster Sunflower contest. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
As another growing season comes to a close, Waterbury gardeners of all ages gathered their best sunflower specimens for the annual crowning of Sunzilla, the Monster Sunflower, recently.
Sunflower heads are measured and weighed. Photo by Gordon Miller
Hosted by the Waterbury Rotary Club, the contest marked its 33rd year at Rusty Parker Park on a sunny Sept. 10 afternoon. Rotarian and contest lead organizer John Malter actually plants the seeds for this friendly competition each spring by distributing thousands of sunflower seeds to local school students and the community in general at Rotary events, at some local businesses and in his travels.
Plenty of people take him up on the challenge and plant the seeds; a select few harvest their best specimens to enter into the September contest.
Rotary volunteers set up in the park, ready for the contestants to arrive, some carrying sunflowers still on their stalks, others with just giant severed flower heads to enter into the competition. Volunteers check in everyone with a flower ahead of the weighing and measuring. Also welcome are zucchinis of unusual sizes for the contest’s corollary competition: the Hunt for the Other Green Monster. More on that below.
Waterbury’s new Municipal Manager Graci Zeiger attends Sunzilla along with her husband Scott Zeiger. Photo by Gordon Miller
As people arrived at the park, Malter was hardly the only one in attendance decked out in sunflower-themed attire. Volunteers, contestants, and even spectators came dressed for the occasion. Among those taking in the scene were Waterbury’s new Municipal Manager Graci Zeiger, wearing a bright yellow-and white- flower crown, along with her husband Scott Zeiger. They sported matching bright sunflower-print outfits at their first Sunzilla contest. They snapped photos, mingled, and chatted with people in the crowd of about 40 or so youngsters, parents, Rotarians and community members.
Judging involves pairs of volunteers wrangling a measuring tape to ascertain the heights of entries from flower to the base of their stalk. Each flower is measured for diameter. Once those measurements are recorded, flowers are cut from their stalks for weighing. Some contestants just enter a flower head for that part of the contest.
The tallest flower is crowned Sunzilla and this year’s winner by a half inch was entered by Levon Leitner. His sunflower measured 136.5 inches, just edging out Chase Dabrowski’s flower at 136 inches in height. Margaret Ogelby’s was third-tallest at 118 inches; Dave Marshall’s took fourth place with a flower standing 114 inches.
Rachel Babin’s sunflower flower head entry impressed by measuring 18 inches in diameter and weighing 6 lbs. 4 oz. Her young son Teddy accepted her prizes.
Dave Marshall’s entry came in a solid second to Babin’s, with a flower weighing 6 lbs. 2 oz. and measuring 15.5 inches across. It tied with Ethan and Grant Dabrowski’s sunflower, which also measured 15.5 inches in diameter; it weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz. Leitner’s Sunzilla flower was fourth-heaviest, tipping the scale at 3 lbs. 14 oz. A final prize-winner was Riona Collins with the third-largest flower at 14 inches in diameter.
And the winners are …
The Other Green Monster contest varies in popularity from year to year, largely depending on whether it’s been a good summer for growing zucchinis. Judging from the scant entries this year, conditions were not ideal. The contest’s lone entrant, Tiago Campos Grover, took the prize for an 18.5-inch-long specimen that weighed in at 7 lbs. 6 oz. The prize was a zucchini cookbook and sunflower seeds to feed birds.
In addition to the Waterbury Rotary Club, other Sunzilla sponsors include Evergreen Gardens, Goldenrod Design, and Waterbury True Value Hardware. Bette Ann Libby’s sunflower art banner adds to the celebration as well.
Sunflower seed-spitting for distance & accuracy
A Sunzilla contest tradition is a sunflower seed-spitting contest billed for kids 12 and under but offered to all those gathered to include the “young at heart” as organizer John Malter puts it. This year, multiple adults in attendance, most of them parents accompanying young contestants, took him up on the offer.
Everyone got a few practice seeds to decide their technique and everyone got three tries to spit their seeds both the farthest and the closest to a pie-plate target. Prizes, however, were only awarded to the 12 and under set: Levon Leitner claimed first prize for distance, sending a seed 178 inches. Chase Dabrowski wasn’t far behind for second place, spitting his seed 153 inches. Dabrowski took first for accuracy, getting a seed within 10 inches of the target’s center.
Photos by Lisa Scagliotti