{"id":2029,"date":"2017-01-03T07:39:09","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T15:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2029"},"modified":"2017-01-03T07:39:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T15:39:09","slug":"cosmic-blooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/cosmic-blooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosmic Blooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

In light of 2016\u2019s many significant events, you may not have noticed that it was the \u201cYear of the Cosmos\u201d.\u00a0 But noticed or unnoticed, Fleuroselect, the Netherlands-based horticulture trade group, decreed that last year, cosmos were the brightest stars in the horticultural heavens. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0It may be a coincidence, or not, but at the same time, Britain\u2019s Royal Horticultural Society undertook a massive trial of cosmos varieties at its botanical garden at Wisley.\u00a0 Photos of the trial beds show scores of tidy mounds of brightly colored flowers in a range of heights.\u00a0 The rising tide of cosmos popularity was so significant that noted English garden writer, Graham Rice, wrote it all up in an article for the Telegraph<\/em> newspaper. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Celebrities pay publicists a fortune to get that kind of press.\u00a0 Cosmos, knowing nothing of reality TV or the going rate for celebrity status, went right on blooming while the international spotlight focused on their colorful petals.\u00a0 Unlike many celebrities, they went viral while keeping their cool.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gardeners who grow reliable annuals have been wild about cosmos for years.\u00a0 Vita Sackville-West, one of the doyennes of twentieth century garden writing, threw caution to the winds in her garden and grew \u2018Orange Ruffles\u2019, which she described as \u201cthree-foot tall, feathery of leaf, starry of flower, long lasting, and pretty enough in a mixed bunch to please even Mrs. Constance Spry.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though English gardeners love them, cosmos are a New World species, originating in Mexico, Central and South America.\u00a0 Cosmos bipinnatus, an annual and one of the three species with descendants in commerce today, was introduced from Mexico about 1800.\u00a0 Supposedly Spanish priests grew them in the gardens of Mexican missions.\u00a0 The flowers\u2019 daisy-like appearance attests to the species membership in the large and far-flung daisy or Compositae family.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Once cosmos hit the American and European markets in the early decades of the nineteenth century, their popularity grew.\u00a0 Seed vendors offered excellent bipinnatus strains like the aristocratic-sounding \u2018Lady Lennox Pink\u2019.\u00a0 But despite their alluring flowers, cosmos were not perfect.\u00a0 Nineteenth century varieties were late bloomers, taking months to go from seed to flower.\u00a0 Even \u201cearly-blooming\u201d varieties needed sixty to seventy days to flower.\u00a0 Gardeners in areas with short growing seasons who could not start seeds indoors sometimes found themselves with beautiful plants that only bloomed for a month or so before early autumn frosts set in and killed them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All of that changed in the 1930\u2019s with the introduction of the \u2018Sensation\u2019 strain of cosmos that bloomed in only fifty-six days.\u00a0 The relatively short time from seed to flower meant that more people could enjoy more cosmos for longer periods of time. The \u2018Sensation\u2019 strain continues to be available today. Nearly concurrent with the arrival of \u2018Sensation\u2019, breeders developed double-flowered cosmos, which extended the available offerings and continue to be popular.\u00a0 More recently\u20142007 to be exact\u2014another form appeared, this time with petals fused into a shape that made the flowers resemble cupcake papers.\u00a0 Dubbed \u2018Cupcakes\u2019, these plants are available in white, pale pink and deep rose. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The bipinnatus strains and varieties are wonderful, but the color range is somewhat limited to white, some pale yellows, like \u2018Xanthos\u2019, and a host of pinks.\u00a0 Another species, Cosmos sulphureus, features slightly smaller flowers than the bipinnatus offerings, but those flowers extend the cosmos color range into deep yellows, oranges and dark reds.\u00a0 Native to Mexico, the sulphureus species can grow to a towering six feet, but breeders have remedied that by perfecting more compact varieties.\u00a0 Among the most popular strains is \u2018Cosmic\u2019, which grows only 12 to 24 inches and features semi-double petal rows.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gardeners and chocoholics found a new reason to rejoice in 1870, when Cosmos atrosanguineous were discovered in Mexico.\u00a0 These plants grow from dahlia-like tubers and boast small, red-brown flowers with a chocolate scent.\u00a0 Identified in the wild a second time in 1878, it has never been found again.\u00a0 Fortunately for the survival of these chocolate-scented beauties, the atrosanguineous species proved popular as a garden plant.\u00a0 A recent variety, \u2018Choco Mocha\u2019 is perfect for container growing, rising only 10-12 inches.\u00a0 Though the chocolate cosmos are perennial, they are tender in cold winter areas and should be treated like annuals.\u00a0 It is possible that digging and storing the tubers, like the standard over-wintering treatment for dahlias, might perpetuate choice plants over the winter.\u00a0 Doing so would make an excellent plant experiment for gardeners who are so inclined.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another English gardening deity, Gertrude Jekyll, liked to use cosmos with asters for end-of-season color.\u00a0 This would work especially well with the white, pink and rose bipinnatus types, whose colors echo the predominant aster hues.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My longtime favorite cosmos is \u2018Purity\u2019, a bipinnatus variety that has been around for over eighty years.\u00a0 It features radiant white petals, ferny light green foliage and a floriferous disposition.\u00a0 Working well in a rose or mixed annual\/perennial\/shrub border, \u2018Purity\u2019 rises to three feet tall.\u00a0 If you deadhead or pick the blooms regularly, the plants will exert themselves from late spring or early summer until fall.\u00a0 If you are a haphazard planter, clumps of \u2018Purity\u2019 make excellent buffers between potentially clashing color combinations.\u00a0 The cut stems also last very well in arrangements.\u00a0 What more could anyone want?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As with many annuals, cosmos grow best in well-drained, consistently moist soil.\u00a0 Site the plants in a sunny spot for the maximum number of blooms.\u00a0 Sometimes happy cosmos will self seed.\u00a0 If you want to encourage this, stop picking or deadheading at the end of summer or the beginning of fall, depending on when first frosts usually hit.\u00a0 The following spring, watch for seedlings, being careful not to disturb them as you haul out the onion grass and chickweed.\u00a0 Mine tend to self seed on occasion, but I always buy fresh seed to augment supplies.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The root word that gave rise to the common name, \u201ccosmos\u201d, also gave us the words \u201ccosmic\u201d, \u201ccosmology\u201d and, of course, \u201ccosmos\u201d, signifying the universe.\u00a0 In the small universe of my garden, flowering cosmos shine brightly every year. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In light of 2016\u2019s many significant events, you may not have noticed that it was the \u201cYear of the Cosmos\u201d.\u00a0 But noticed or unnoticed, Fleuroselect, the Netherlands-based horticulture trade group, decreed that last year, cosmos were the brightest stars in the horticultural heavens. \u00a0It may be a coincidence, or not, but at the same time, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1553,852,532,1555,1554],"class_list":["post-2029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-annuals","tag-container-plants","tag-cosmos","tag-daisies","tag-fleuroselect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2030,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions\/2030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}