Cosmos help!

[Fushia123]

I’ve grown these compost from seed. They are now in the garden and are robust and healthy. However there is not a bud to be seen! Have they come up blind? What have I done and how can I remedy this?

Wait….IMO, home grown cosmos are often very late to flower, but then can go on until the first frosts.
I started a thread a few years ago (with a title I was rather pleased with and so can remember ) - look at the dates at the start and end of the thread!

your plants look lovely and healthy, I guess some high potassium fertiliser might encourage flowers.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/4382809-the-mystery-of-the-cosmos

When did you plant them and are they getting enough sun? I sowed the seeds indoors in March and put them in a window, then put them outside beginning of May, so they've been blooming a while. I've got dwarves in pots and full size in the ground

Im having the same issue. Great height, bushy but no flowers or buds annoyingly.

Get yourself onto the Facebook group R4 Gardeners’ Question Time Friends and ask Jonathan Sheppard for advice. He’s on there all the time and answers questions, and is a cosmos expert.

Mine aren't flowering yet either, sowed late in semi shade (4 hours or so of sun).

If they're in good rich soil, they can go for quite a while with very healthy frothy foliage, and... no flowers.

Those you see in flower now will probably be in poorer soil.

We sowed our seed in early April and ours have been flowering for months. I put some in big pots, some in sunny borders, some in partial shade. The ones in sunny borders are best . All of them are less bushy than your beauties!

I tried cosmos before and sun does seem to be the answer

I've grown Cosmos for years. This year they have very few flowers so far, a couple of plants have no visible buds either. I just shoved some seeds into pots and beds this year, they look amazingly healthy and quite huge just hardly any flowers

Same! I’ve just been out and given half of them a bit of a chop. Not a single flower yet.

I've planted mine in two places (both sown from the same seed at the same time). The ones at the allotment in full sun with soil covered in manure last winter have started masses of flowers in the last couple of weeks. The ones in semi shade getting a dose of rose feed are doing nothing.

I've planted mine in two places (both sown from the same seed at the same time). The ones at the allotment in full sun with soil covered in manure last winter have started masses of flowers in the last couple of weeks. The ones in semi shade getting a dose of rose feed are doing nothing.

Too much nitrogen fertiliser? Soil too fertile? Both possibilities.

My Cosmos have been a complete disaster this year. All my seedlings were destroyed by slugs overnight. We had rooted out a straggly hedge, to be replanted this autumn, so I thought I would sow all the rest of the seeds to fill the gap over summer. One plant has come up!

Oh well, there's always next year!

@ErrolTheDragon

That thread title made me laugh!

I have no idea... but I'm impressed by how big they are! I hope you get some flowers eventually. Mine got eaten again, by ants I think 😢

May I hijack to ask the Cosmos experts if they would do better in the garden than a pot? I usually put them in a pot and they flower but they never grow very big. However my neighbour has a massive one in a pot... I have Cosmos envy!

Same here. Planted some in pots with new compost and they are all healthy green, no flowers. But the same plants in the front garden in the soil were doing great covered in buds ( well the 3 that survived the slugs)until the storm last week snapped them all. Most years cosmos have done well for me, not this year, shame as I love them.

I planted mine from seed. Some were kept longer indoors and some in a mini green house before being planted in the garden. The ones that had been in the mini green house started flowering about two weeks ago. The others still haven’t developed buds yet.

Some of the bloody buggers have finally flowered and are beautiful!

Mine too! Huge strong stems and beautiful flowers!

Glad yours came up as well, I love the burst of colour. It’s so welcome especially now that most of my other flowers have died off!

I have a few flowers too. At last. It’s frustrating because I pulled a few plants up last week and binned them.

Late bloomers here too but they are beautiful especially those with lush bushy foliage.

Yay! They managed to squeak into September. Now hope for the winds not to batter them and the frosts to hold off.

Mine have maybe 3 flowers on them now and the storm this weekend will finish them off. Maybe I need to sow them earlier? House done the road has a smashing display. The bastards.

They may weather this storm if they’ve got support. The ones I had before which were very tall must have had a fair bit of wind in October and November before succumbing to frost.

I think I heard Sarah Raven say that a lot of the seed is bred in Morocco and cosmos waits for the days to get shorter. Obviously our days in late summer take longer to get to the same shortness. And that can therefore delay flowering. She said you really want seed from here.