Why We Grow Cosmos

For the whimsy they bring to the late-summer garden.

This is our second summer growing cosmos at Topo Pino, and they have quickly become a favorite.

By late summer, their slender stems rise above the cutting garden in shades of white and soft pink. The flowers seem almost to float above their feathery foliage, swaying and bending with the slightest breeze.

There is something wonderfully unstudied about them.

While other flowers give the garden shape and abundance, cosmos bring whimsy. Their long, flowing stems wander through the rows, softening their edges and lending the garden a sense of ease.

In Full Bloom

Cosmos are perhaps at their loveliest when there are enough of them to lose track of the individual plants.

At full bloom, white and blush flowers appear at different heights, some facing the sun and others nodding toward their neighbors. Fine green foliage fills the spaces beneath them. Nothing looks particularly arranged.

That is precisely the charm.

Against the old house and the woods beyond, they give our young cutting garden a softness that feels remarkably at home here. What was carefully measured and planted in June becomes, by September, something freer and more romantic.

From Garden to Vase

We love cosmos in a vase for much the same reason.

Their stems have a natural curve and looseness that we leave largely undisturbed. Tucked among the fuller blooms of late summer, they give an arrangement room to breathe and keep it from feeling too composed.

Their vase life is fleeting compared with some of the flowers we grow, but perhaps that suits them.

Cosmos have never seemed like flowers meant to be preserved. Their beauty is in their movement, their delicacy, and the particular moment of the season in which they appear.

A Place Here

After two summers, certain flowers are beginning to feel essential to the cutting garden at Topo Pino.

Cosmos are among them.

We love their soft colors and feathery foliage, their flowing stems, and the bit of whimsy they bring to the garden. At the end of summer, when they are finally in full bloom, the rows seem less like rows and the garden feels a little more like it has always belonged here.

We grow them for cutting.

But we love them most in full bloom, moving through the late-summer garden.