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Growing from Seed

Beginner planting Cosmo seeds

13 years ago

I am a tenderfoot trying my gardening skills on flowers! I have planted lettuces before in my school and only got 4 limp harvests. Now, I'm 13 and am interested in planting flowers for a change, I have heard that cosmos are the most easy to plant and care since they don't need too much attention. watering, or fertilizing. I have prepared one big clay pot with compost soil, and one smaller pot as well. Is it alright for me to grow my cosmos in pre-fertilized pots? And is it okay to grow them in pots, my pot is big. . .And what are the necessary steps to do to be able to grow a healthy cosmos. I have heard of pinching the soil tip once it sprouts and tying it to a stick when it's a few cm tall. Can anyone please give me step-by-step instructions. I wanted to surprise my mom with a cosmos garden! Just bought the seeds today, fertilized soil still very, very warm. Will plant tomorrow morning and leave it out to warm. :) Merrin

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Comments (4)

yiorges-z5il
13 years ago
OK to grow in pre fertilized soil in a pot.
Lightly cover seed soil temp 68-86F & takes 5-10 days to germinate. DO not pinch plant till 4-6 sets of feaves have formed. BUT flowering will take 16-18 weeks if you do NOT pinch...... add 2-3 weeks to flower if you DO PINCH>
I comend you for ypor desire to please your mother ... next year start earler
oilpainter
13 years ago
Lucky mother to have a daughter like you.

I pinch back very few plants. In my opinion they do not need it. In the Philippines it is going to be very hard to keep the soil at the right temperature for them to germinate at this time of year. viorges gives you the temperature range for germination. Plants do not need the sun to germinate so if you can put your pots in the shade until they are up. The pots should be kept moist but not sopping wet. When they are up you can then move them into the sun.

Marigolds would have been a better choice. They only take about a month to flower.
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Hi Ann, You really shouldn't have any problems saving and storing cosmos seeds.I'm assuming you are waiting until they are completely mature before picking. So I'm a bit baffled. Cosmos seed just needs to be kept cool, dark, and dry so nothing out of the ordinary. They normally germinate quite well in the spring. I did have a bit of a WSing problem with them this year as in many sprouted and then there was a frost. Most of them died. All my other WSed sprouts lived, so they must be very temperature sensitive. So make sure there is no chance of frost when sowing or use containers outside and bring them in if a frost is coming then transplant them once it is warmer. The only other thing I can think of is not all the seeds are fertile. Maybe you are not getting good insect pollination on them or it is just a varietal thing. If I were you I would save way more seeds than you actually need then over sow in the spring so you are ensuring some will sprout. Remy
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After the petals fall, the seeds will start to mature and then turn brown. You will want to wait until they are brown b4 harvesting them. If you scroll down to the very bottom of the link below, you will see the seeds head (not a very good pic) and the seeds after harvest. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Cosmos
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jardin_de_maria
13 years ago
Hi Merrin :)

Last month I sowed a wildflower mix from Burpee's that contained cosmos in my soil. I'm from nearby Guam and right now it's been a hot summer. It's supposed to be rainy season, but we've only had about 50/50 days of rain and days of hot-dry. I sowed the seeds in poor soil with some stuff to keep the bugs away, then lightly covered them with some kind of soil mix my dad made (i believe just the same poor, clay-ish soil I planted them in and some potting soil) and watered them for a few days. Then some rain started coming and generally I have stopped watering them.

Now the cosmos are the tallest, and are about to bloom, and it's only been a month :) They were the first to grow. I didn't pinch them or anything. Hardly did anything.

I suppose it depends on the seeds you get, your area... I did this wildflower sowing as an experiment to see what would grow here. I'm a beginner gardener too and it's best to experiment with what will grow where you are, because even if our climates are similar, there are so many different micro-climates depending on the very spot where you plant them.
tumblingtomatoes
13 years ago
Cosmos were one of the very first flowers I successfully grew (I am still a newbie!), they were soo delicate & pretty, attracted nice butterflies & bees, some ladybugs too. The kids loved them! They were also very esy to save seeds from & we did & shared them with several relatives & friends, we're planting some from saved seeds now. All we did was barely cover the seeds with seed starting mix in cups. They germinated quite easily & did pretty well actually throughout our very hot, humid, rainy summer & our record freeze for Florida in winter. They reseeded themselves as well. Very easy flower & pretty!

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