Feb 01
Cosmos flowers come in far more forms than the familiar pink-and-white daisies many gardeners picture first. Within the genus Cosmos, gardeners can choose from annual and perennial species, compact and towering plants, single and double flowers, tubular petals, cup-shaped blooms, bicolors, pale yellow selections, apricot cultivars, and dark chocolate-scented perennials. Most ornamental cosmos grown in …
Feb 01
Cosmos flowers move through a surprisingly fast series of growth stages, beginning as narrow seeds and ending as tall, branching plants covered in flowers and eventually mature seed heads. Under warm, sunny conditions, many annual cosmos varieties can go from seed to their first flowers in roughly 75 to 90 days, although early cultivars may …
Feb 01
A cosmos flower bed can turn an ordinary sunny patch of garden into months of airy foliage and colorful flowers with surprisingly little maintenance. Cosmos are among the easiest annual flowers to grow from seed, and the huge range of modern varieties means a bed no longer has to consist only of traditional pink-and-white blooms. …
Feb 01
Cosmos flowers are strongly associated with Mexico, and for good reason: Mexico is an important center of diversity for the genus and the birthplace of several of the cosmos species most commonly grown in gardens. However, saying simply that “cosmos flowers are native to Mexico” does not tell the whole story. The genus Cosmos has …
Feb 01
Cosmos flowers can grow anywhere from about 1 foot to more than 6 feet tall, depending on the species, cultivar, soil, sunlight, water, and growing conditions. That enormous range is one reason it can be difficult to answer a simple question such as, “How tall do cosmos grow?” Compact varieties such as Sonata, Apollo, Xanthos, …
Feb 01
Cosmos flowers are generally considered deer resistant, but they are not deer-proof. Deer often leave established Cosmos bipinnatus plants alone when more appealing food is available, which makes cosmos a useful annual for gardens where deer browsing is a concern. However, hungry deer can still eat the foliage, stems, buds, or flowers—especially when plants are …
Feb 01
Cosmos usually begins blooming in summer and continues into fall until frost, giving gardeners one of the longest flowering seasons among easy annual flowers. Depending on the cultivar, sowing date, climate, and growing conditions, the first flowers may appear roughly 75 to 90 days after sowing. Some early varieties can bloom sooner, while slower specialty …
Feb 01
Some cosmos flowers and other plant parts are edible, but you should not assume that every species of Cosmos can be eaten in the same way. The genus contains numerous species with different histories of culinary use, and reliable food documentation is much stronger for some than for others. Two of the clearest examples are …
Feb 01
A cosmos flower field can transform a sunny open area into a moving mass of pink, white, crimson, apricot, yellow, and orange blooms from summer into fall. Unlike a carefully layered cosmos flower bed, a meadow-style planting is designed to look loose, abundant, and natural, with hundreds or even thousands of flowers growing together rather …
Feb 01
The scientific name of the familiar garden cosmos is Cosmos bipinnatus, but that is only one species within the much larger Cosmos genus. Yellow and orange sulphur cosmos is Cosmos sulphureus, chocolate cosmos is Cosmos atrosanguineus, and numerous lesser-known wild species have their own botanical names. That distinction is important because there is no single …
