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Favourite Cosmos

GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
Do you grow Cosmos? Do you have a favourite, or one that it is best to avoid. I have grown Rubenza this year it has just started to flower and I love it such a great colour. Maybe you prefer some of the tall ones? I would be interested to know your thoughts.
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.

Posts

  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited June 2022
    Tetra Versailles Red is/was my favourite and used to be sold by Sarah Raven, but no longer. I can't find the seed anywhere in the UK. Such a good, dark red. They still sell other Versailles in the UK, just not his one. :/



     - -


    I do love the cosmos trees you get late in the year that then flower madly through Oct and Nov. I think it's worth putting the plants (or at least some of the plants) into rich soil, just to get the bigger, later flowering explosion.

    This is the gargantuan cosmos in Oct last year as grown by the great gardener who is @tack - heaven.



  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    @Fire Oh that first photo is stunning. I think Rubenza will be more of a pink/red as it fades.  I hadn't realised that a rich soil was needed to grow really big plants but that would seem logical. I always water well but don't normally feed them perhaps I should?

    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    Xanthos.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited June 2022
     I hadn't realised that a rich soil was needed to grow really big plants but that would seem logical. I always water well but don't normally feed them perhaps I should?
    Well, the standard advice is  - no - because they are regarded as Med-type plants similar to lavender, rosemary, thyme etc, growing in poor, stony ground in full sun. I think that if you want a standard cosmos, standard size, flowering in early summer, then plant in rubbish soil and don't feed. I think Tack's plant is as it is because of all the rich nutrition.

    My linaria self-seeded into manured ground and is now closing on seven foot - for similar reasons, I suspect.

  • For a bit of color I like fizzy purple (excuse the pic it’s the only flower just now)



    For a a bit more subtle, lower growing I like xanthos


  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,618
    Cupcakes were pretty, seashells unusual.  generally I like all them , just to use as fillers in the border.
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    I like Sonata mixed




    Rutland, England
  • murasakimurasaki Posts: 76
    I must say i adore Cosmos but I planted it the last two years only to get a few flowers on very tall bushes, in late autumn (very very late). I wanted to give up on them, but i had a few seeds left and i planted them in the exact same bed (sandy, full sun), only this time i had amended the soil with chicken manure and something which was supposed to be "good" soil (too much clay for my taste). i only threw the cosmos there because i hadn't had time to get all the new plants i wanted to put in there. To my shock, the cosmos thrives and they have already started to bloom! So maybe they do like a more nutritious soil after all! 
  • Not so keen on Rubenza, it fades to a sort of dull red brick colour in my garden. I like all others, must try the creamy xanthos type.  Am growing a picotee variety, Dazzler and Purity this year. but nowhere near flowering yet, they seem slow to get going.

    There are some Sarah Raven podcast notes explaining why some cosmos flower later than others here, and how to avoid this (if you want to!)

     


  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    Thoanyou for sharing your lovely photos and thoughts on which ones too grow. They are  well worth growing and so many to choose from. I have noted all your suggestions and next year will try something else.
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
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