Cosmos, or the Cosmos
Description. Coming from Central America, this plant became so familiar that its Latin name is changed to Russian - Cosmia, and even easier - the beauty. We can say that it feels like at home: it breeds often self-seeded and unpretentious to growing conditions. Naturally, highly decorative large-colored varieties are more capricious. Elegant foliage of plants is also decorative. Good cosmet for the decoration of buildings, uninteresting places on the sites, creating a high background in the rabatkah and in groups. Low-grade arrangers, especially Japanese, like to use in compositions, in water it costs 6-10 days.
Cosmee is cold-resistant, painlessly tolerates small frosts and is drought-resistant. Herbaceous annual plant with an erect, highly branched stem 50-120 cm high. The leaves are strongly indented, the roots are powerful. Inflorescences-baskets are single, large, up to 12 cm in diameter, white, pink or purple non-marble, but there are garden forms of with terry and anemone inflorescences. Seeds are harvested as they grow in September.
Two types are known in the culture:
Cosmic bipartite is an upright plant 1-1,2 m high with a dense sturdy stem. Inflorescences-baskets are single or collected in a rare flap, their diameter is up to 12 cm. The tongue flowers are arranged in one or more rows( in terry forms), white, pink, red or purple, tubular - small yellow.
Cosmos sulfur-yellow - plants 1,2-1,5 m in height, reed flowers orange or golden yellow, inflorescences somewhat smaller, diameter 8-10 cm.
Cultivation and care. The soil is undemanding, with an excess of organic substances, flowering is delayed. Cultivate the space by sowing seeds early in the spring into the ground. Seedlings appear after 10-12 days, later they are thinned out. The distance between the plants is 30-35 cm. It is rarely grown through seedlings. Sow seeds in April, grown without picks, planted in place in mid-May at a distance of 35-40 cm from each other. Blossoms from August to strong frosts during early sowing in the soil and from July - with a seedling growing method. Watering only with a strong drying of the soil.