4 days Ago By Brian Dillon
Cosmos are the flowers you will want to plant now to add a bright dash of colour to your garden in time for summer. British gardeners are busy doing their spring planting so that their gardens will be fully-bloomed by the summer months. While many seeds have been sown for weeks, there are still some flowers you can plant now that will bloom in summer, giving your garden that lovely bit of vibrancy for when you have visitors on a sunny day.
Cosmos are part of the sunflower family and grow in a range of colours including pink, red, white, orange, yellow and purple. For British gardens, they are a must when you want to eaisly add an exciting array of colours. According to the experts at Gardeners World, cosmos should be planted in either March or April, meaning that now is the perefct time to sew the seeds.
They will then flower between May and October and will have to be cut back after that. Cosmos should be planted in a bright area of the garden as they need full sun. They also need to be planted in moist, free-draining soil.
While you can plant these seeds directly into the ground, you can also start growing these flowers in pots. Once they grow large enough to handle, you can take them out of the pots and plant them in the part of the garden you want them to grow. Like many flowers, dead heads should be cut off cosmos as part of their continuous care.
Meanwhile, taller varieties of cosmos will need staking. When the season ends in October, you can collect seeds from flowering cosmos and save it to sow the following year. When it comes to protecting cosmos from pests , slugs and snails are the ones you need to watch out for.
Smaller, younger cosmos are particularly attractive to these insects so consider creating barriers in the spring time when you have just planted your flowers. You should also make sure that plants are spaced enough as they can develop powdery mildew if they are too crowded. Spacing is also important to avoiud fusarium wilt, a fungal disease that can develop in these flowers.
You should also water them regularly but make sure that the soil does not get soggy..
