For me, cosmos flowers represent harmony with nature and the Greek word Kosmos stands for harmony and order. No wonder I love the beautiful cosmos flowers so much. Other words often linked to them are tranquility, peace, love, joy, beauty, and serenity. I could go on and on and on here……………
The usual annual cosmos we grow from seed is Cosmos bipinnatus, commonly known as the Mexican aster.
I grow many different packets of cosmos seed every year and that number keeps growing year on year as I spot beautiful new varieties.
8 benefits for you to grow some beautiful cosmos flowers with me.
1. Cosmos is draught tolerant.
Cosmos flowers are native to Mexico and can therefore cope well with our increasingly dry summers and extreme temperatures. They prefer poor soil so providing you have a sunny area; you can grow them with minimal fuss. Give then some water, first thing in the morning or later in the day, if they start to wilt in the heat. As a result, they will repay you with masses of beautiful blooms for months on end.
2. Cosmos attracts pollinators
The beautiful cosmos flowers are absolute magnets for bees, butterflies, and other insects such as hoverflies. One patch of these flowers will bring you hordes of pollinators. Consequently, it will be a joy to watch them drinking nectar and fluttering off to the next flower. The open flowers are absolutely packed with pollen and nectar and are easy for the pollinators to access the food they need.
Double flowers are usually of no use to our pollinators, but cosmos is an exception. For example, doubles such as the lovely Double Click series have plenty of nectar. These are available in beautiful colours, my favourite being, Double Click cranberries, a fabulous dark carmine. Furthermore, this colour really does make me swoon.
Here’s a couple of reasons why we need to grow flowers for pollinators and do our bit to help:
The Butterfly Conservation’s State of the UK Butterfly report 2022, https://butterfly-conservation.org/state-of-uk-butterflies-2022 which was published in February 2023 has revealed the shocking news that 80% of butterflies in the UK have declined since the 1970’s.
My post Counting beautiful butterflies, gardeners can help gives some more ideas on growing flowers for butterflies. This post also gives details on the Big Butterfly Count.
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust states that over the past century, our bumblebee populations have crashed. Two species have become nationally extinct, and several others have declined dramatically.
My post Important it’s Earth day 2023 gives some suggestions on planting for pollinators.
3. Cosmos will flower for months and months.
Cosmos flowers have an incredibly long flowering season and will flower from as early as May until the first frosts which can be as late as December. I sow a few in my greenhouse in late February and have been known to plant them out in late April. Naturally, with my fingers crossed for no frosts!
In the last couple of years, I have had beautiful cosmos flowers blooming from early May. Equally importantly, I had a welcome flush of beautiful blooms to gaze at and some very grateful pollinators. If you want to try this, keep an eye on the weather. Just sow a few so you have more seeds in your packets if the frost does sneak into the garden when you plant them outside.
If you need to direct sow outside, you will still be able to get a long blooming season from July onwards. In 2022 I still had a few cosmos flowers in December. The plants were getting rather tired and leggy but still they flowered, right up till the day the frosts came to visit.
They are a truly valuable flower to grow to provide you with hundreds of blooms for months and months of colour.
4. Cosmos is so easy to grow
Cosmos seeds can be sown in a greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill in peat free sowing compost in pots or trays.
You can also sow seed in early spring directly into the soil where you want your beautiful cosmos flowers to grow.
And the last four benefits
5. The sheer variety of colours and flower shapes you can grow
Cosmos seeds are available in so many colours and different shapes so there are varieties to suit everyone’s tastes. Pictured above:
There are beautiful cosmos flowers for the backs of borders which are tall plants. These can range between 80cm right up to 150cm in height. Tall plants will need staking to avoid any damage in high winds and to keep them upright. Also, there are dwarf cosmos varieties for fronts of borders, pots or window boxes.
6. Cosmos for cut flowers
Cosmos will provide you with hundreds of flowers for bouquets to have indoors or to share with your loved ones. They are truly cut and come again flowers so each time you cut a flower stem; more will follow. Cutting will turbo charge the plants into producing more flowers for you.
There are so many great reasons to grow your own flowers for picking:
Growing at home means no air miles and your flowers can be picked fresh from your garden.
Growing your own flowers for picking will save you money.
Sowing and growing your own flowers for cutting is so rewarding. The sight of a vase full of flowers that you grew yourself, bringing colour into your home, can give you so much pleasure.
You can sow and grow beautiful cosmos flowers that you love in the colours you prefer, and to arrange them on their own or with other flowers and foliage, just as you like them.
7. Cosmos will grow happily in pots
Smaller varieties of cosmos will happily grow in pots and other containers.
Some varieties will grow to 60cm which is the ideal height for containers.
Cosmos growing in pots and other containers are a good solution to bring colour and pollinators to any small spaces you have, such as a courtyard garden, by a front or back door or on a balcony.
Cosmos grown in pots will benefit from a liquid feed every few weeks and will also need to be watered regularly.
With minimal care, you can have beautiful flowers for months in pots and window boxes.
8. Cosmos can fill any spaces and be grown with other flowers
Whichever cosmos varieties you choose to grow, you can plant them in any spare spaces you have, providing the area is sunny. It is always best to grow several plants in one area so that pollinators do not have to travel far to visit the same types of flowers.
I’m sure that if you start growing these beautiful flowers, you will catch the cosmos bug and grow more and more every year.
Someone I met through a terrible bereavement, who has become a good friend, became a passionate gardener through her introduction to cosmos. Click here for her story Greatest benefits of becoming a gardener
Whatever you can do in your garden, the pollinators will be grateful and so will I. Thank you.
Welcome to the cosmos club folks!
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