Garden Guru: Consider Cosmos

I love cosmos,

possibly because I had a huge success with them one year when I planted them in a pile of well rotted manure. They were huge and so vigorous they were a spectacular sight. That was twenty years ago in SW France where they seemed to thrive in the warmth. I have not managed to repeat quite the same success – but I can’t imagine summer without them. Cosmos were first introduced from Mexico in about 1800, their big, bright, daisy-like flowers can be grown in borders, for cutting and, the shorter ones, in containers. They are reliably colourful and they’re so easy  to grow. Almost all the cosmos we grow derive from just three species: Cosmos bipinnatus, C. sulphureus and C. atrosanguineus.

You can save lots of money and have a much wider choice of looks if you plant them yourself from seed. April is the time to start them off under cover – you will not regret the effort – keep them fairly cool so they don’t bolt beore you plant them out when the risk of frost is over. My reliable source of seeds is the Sarah Raven catalogue, and there’s Crocus of course, but they are pretty easy to source –

I’m not a great fan of cosmos complications but I can see how this Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Double Click Cranberries’ could be a useful addition to the cut flower garden.

There are two-tone varieties like ‘Candy Stripe,

and the muted old fashioned shades of ‘Antiquity’.

New kid on the block, ‘Daydream’, with its violet eye is causing quite a stir,

while Cosmos sulphureus ‘Bright Lights’ continues to be a hot favourite.

Then there’s Cosmos atrosanguineus, the chocolate cosmos, a species of Cosmos native to Mexico where it is extinct in the wild. This species is in a league of its own being more discrete and a lot more difficult to please than its show-girl cousins. You can’t grow it from seed (actually some seed is available this year for the first time since it disappeared from seed catalogues in the 1880’s) as it only survived as a sterile plant in Kew, so all new stock was developed by propagation.

Whichever takes your fancy get them going soon – and enjoy many weeks of pleasure while sipping that drink in the hot sunshine of the summer garden.