How To Grow Chocolate Cosmos
By Linda Paquette, Fri Dec 9th
Love Chocolate? Here’s How to Grow Chocolate Cosmos
Chocolate cosmos (Cosmos atrosanguinea) is both nose and eyecandy for your garden. When it’s in full bloom, mature blossomson long, slender stems look like candy kisses on a stick andfill the late afternoon with the sweet scent of vanilla tingedchocolate. New blossoms hug the foliage of the plant, nearlyconcealing it with their numbers! Add to that the sweetchocolate fragrance and you end up with something very special.
Although chocolate cosmos is endangered in the wild, transplantsare easily found at most nurseries and garden centers in thespring. However, gardeners who are inexperienced in how to growchocolate cosmos may overlook what seem to be small, messytangles of miniature dahlia leaves, unaware that onceestablished, prolific blossoms nearly conceal the foliage. Oncein bloom, chocolate cosmos blossoms continuously throughout thesummer into the first frosts of autumn.
If you’re planning a gothic garden, chocolate cosmos is theplant for you. Sometimes referred to as black cosmos, darkmaroon blossoms are so deep in color that they appearbrown/black in late afternoon and evening.
A native of Mexico, this