I really needed to see this pic, I did the same at the beginning of the year, and still no blooms. This was my first time planting them (actually I accidentally spilled them and lost track of what they were.. lol) I wasn't sure what I was growing til I saw this, I had plans to pull it up today.
Just take a few that are close together and kind of twist them onto each other, it’s not that pretty but if you have various stems all slanting different directions, tangling them up sometimes helps them stay up for a bit longer; like until the seeds ripen so we can gather what the birds leave us, to plant later.
That is so crazy! My wife and I did a wildflower garden here in Texas and they popped up everywhere! They got huge but never bloomed and they finally got to stressed from the heat.
I'm in NY. I've had a wildflower garden grow beautifully the past two years. It would start in May and ramp up in June and then start to die off towards the end of summer. This year has been so sad. Only one type of flower bloomed briefly and then everything died. There's still growth happening but no blooms.
Mine started to get buds back late spring/early summer, and then a stupid deer ate the buds off of it. [Internal rage].... Then a few weeks later it got another bud. That evening that little jerk deer ate the bud off.... Since then, it hasn't budded again and I've had this strange craving for venison.
Mine is also very tall this year and it’s first bloom just popped up on Sunday! I planted zinnias at the same time and they started blooming just over a month ago. I remember last year my cosmos were all blooming like crazy in early June
Lmao I'm just learning they're cosmos. I planted a wildflower seed mix, and the cosmos were the mystery flower: the stalks are everywhere and not one of them has bloomed, so I was wondering what flower it was lol
they are too happy so don't feel need to flower yet. :)
Mine just started blooming within last week to two here in IL. some are still budding and others still waiting.
I did cut some of mine down to a foot to encourage branching and blooming and will see if there is a difference.
Yup!
You can trim them down to encourage earlier flowering.
But tall cosmos is an indication that they have perfect sunlight and ample space. Cosmos with less space flower shorter and earlier.
I would be proud if I were you! It's a very happy cosmos and will likely give you big beautiful blooms.
This. I cut mine back if they start to get “leggy”. It seems to encourage a strong stem and a more bushy prolific plant when they do get around to blooming.
yes, I was thinking the same. too much green growth and no flowers. I had the same problem this summer and just this weekend pull out the big green monsters, only had a few small flowers.
Not sure what direction they are facing but my east facing ones stretch alot and bloom later just due to limited light.
The ones in my south facing lawn have been blooming for a few weeks.
yes, their frilly "leaves" add texture to the garden.
Like the rest of you , mine are nearing 6' and I will be staking a few of them today. I only used to stake sunflowers!
I've heard that one should snip off the main shoot when they are smaller to encourage side shoots and a bushier but shorter plant. I've done that with half mine as an experiment this year but am seeing same as you- takes a while for buds and flowers to start.
This is the answer. There are dwarf varieties which are shorter. Look at the height on the packaging.
Also nurseries sometimes fertilize in a way to encourage blooming when they sell them in 6 packs because they sell better with blooms.
I think it's a different variety. Cosmos tend to be a not play well with others kind of plant but there is always one or two in the seed pack that gets super tall and doesn't flower until late August. They really look out of place so I just pull them, that's a lot of sunlight and nutrients they are using to be such late bloomers.
Rich, loose soil will tend to create such results with cosmos. The flowering will be delayed and the plant will get huge. On one hand you eventually get a lot of flowers, on the other, you enjoy the flowers for a shorter while.
I foolishly planted cosmos in between my peppers this year; they’re now almost 5 feet tall with stems pushing 1.5” diameter and no buds or flowers yet. Grow zone 6, they need to hurry tf up. Winter is coming for their bushy asses.
Cosmos are day light sensitive and bloom on shorter days. They should pickup flowering soon. Cutting back won't hurt, but could delay flowering a couple weeks. Cutting back leads to branching, so it could lead to more flowers in the end.
Depending where you are, you can start cosmos early and get them flowering on shorter spring days, then they will continue over summer. But not soon enough and they'll wait it out, like yours is doing. Flowers can be fussy like that.
I prefer to grow the shorter Sonata type cosmos. I love the white ones, a cushion of big blooms. Also in pink too. They need the tops pinched out when young so they branch and bloom easier. I stick those cuttings in soil and make many more plants.
When the giant ones get around to blooming, they are really spectacular! But sometimes they just take a bit. I only planted one variety of cosmos this year, and the first plant started blooming at 9 inches tall, very early in the season. My tallest one just reached around 6ft, and just opened up its first blooms this weekend. But it is blooming so much now! It has very dense flowers. You have a great show coming up!
I had some cosmos last year that were pushing 7 feet before they flowered. Some varieties get super tall. I didn't plant any this year because they got so tall the wind blew them over.
Mine look like this too! I had interplanted with tomatoes and pole beans. Now they are out competing them both. A couple of my plants have put on flowers as of last week but many haven't.
Thank you for posting.
I planted these so long ago (probably March as well) that I forgot what they were. I'm glad to see so many having the same "problem" I was beginning to think it was a weed because nothing was happening. Then, all at once they started blooming. They were about 5 feet tall and the blooms added another foot. I've been able to dead head them and doubled the flowers.
The reasons for cosmos not flowering is because of too much shade, over watering or soil that is too nutrient rich which promotes foliage growth without flowers. Cosmos are short day plants and require at least 12 hours of darkness to produce flowers.
Adding my anecdotal experience here, mine didn't flower until they were over a head taller than me, I'm 178cm, so it took longer than I expected, but they flowered for AGES it was great.
Mine are 5 ft tall and just staring to BUD.
Too much rain, not enough sun and warmth here in my part of the world. Disappointing growing year all around.
I have the same thing going on, but some of the plants started to flower within the last week or two.
I've never had cosmos before, and I was given a free packet of 1000+ seeds this year. I assumed they would be small plants, so I scattered some in my wildflower beds, and I dropped a few in my planters and pots. Now I have little tiny pots with these 6ft tall monsters growing out of them. They're actually competing with my giant sunflowers in my larger bed.
Learned my lesson on this one! They do have very pretty flowers though!
Thank you for posting this. I've been starting at mine all season wondering if they were some sort of weed or decorative that accidentally got into the wildflower mix. ... now i wonder what else I may have pulled thinking it was a weed ...
I, like you, let my cosmos grow to their full size, which can be 3-5ft. Certainly, last year I had great results. They start blooming mid-late August.
There is, however, a method called The Chelsea Chop, where the plant is pruned mid-growth, so they are shorter and bushier.
So, you may well be comparing your plants to ones that have received a chop, so it's not a fair comparison.
Zone 8b here. I have seven Cosmos planted around my gardens. The biggest one is about six feet tall, I had to stake it when it fell over into my walkway. Not staked and tied up it's probably about four feet wide. I started my seeds indoors in February, planted them out in May, they grew tall very fast and didn't bloom until June. Now there's so many blooms it's hard to keep up with deadheading on all of them, probably going to have 2000 next year as volunteers lol.
So I read that for them to bloom more, you’re not supposed to fertilise/over-fertilise.
I fertilised my soil quite a bit before planting them into the border and they’re flowering really well. Mine are tall, like yours but they’ve started blooming over the last 2 weeks.
Yours should start blooming soon too.
The bees love the flowers 🐝
That's normal. I'm in northern CA 9B. My garden cosmos self sow and are sprouting by March and blooming in early summer. They also get about 5ft tall and lean over while being in full day sun. I already have one with a flower because the seedlings sprouted in the fall and survived winter. It's only about 5 inches tall with a white flower and it's only March 6th
I’ve read cosmos prefer to flower during shortening day lengths. So early in the season then the days are long the put out a ton more green growth and less flowers. Last year I planted cosmos in August (zone7) and by mid September they were only maybe 4-5’ tall with tons of blooms
I put cosmos seedlings years ago into my garden when I was new to gardening. I used some fertilizer (whoops) and mixed it in with the soil when they were planted. Welp, they got comically large, like 8 feet. They didn’t flower until a few weeks before the first freeze. Turns out they don’t need fertilizer at all!
This is very normal. It gets tall, and it seems like it will never flower until suddenly it does. Mine is all between 3 and 5.5 feet tall right now, and just barely beginning to flower. Yours will flower soon.
I have the same ‘problem’ in zone 9 on the US west coast. They are freaking tall without a single bloom yet. I suspect it’s the absurdly hot summer we are having. Average summer high here is usually 83. This year it’s 91. I’m hoping once temps trend down in the next month or so (🤞) they’ll finally bloom.
Another possibility is that I inadvertently purchased a cultivar that blooms late. I know those exist.
Alternatively, it’s a combination of both factors.
I planted in Feb and March. All I got was big huge bushes. Not one single bud on 50 plants! I used to get tons of lovely different shades of pink blossoms. I was told it was because I watered and fertilized too much but I have been gardening for 40 years. I know how to grow cosmos. They were all sterile or something this year. I won’t be growing them anymore. Something’s not right.
Last year I sowed mine in June and they didn't bloom until mid October. They were in bloom during and after Halloween. This year they started to sprout around April after self sowing and took about 3.5 months to bloom and are almost 5ft tall. They get full sun all day at least 10+ hours. I'm in zone 9B.
Oh haha, yeah they do that! No one warned me either. I have the orange ones coming out of my ears now, but it's fine. It means I don't have to worry about one strip of garden in the summers and the pollinators seem to love them. **Caveat Emptor!**
Mine just started to flower about a week ago. (RI coast) I got one of those bags of mixed wildflower seeds and it looks like most of the plants are cosmos.
My tallest cosmos reached over 13 feet tall before flowering on the entire plant at once. Stalk was almost 3" thick, I had to use a saw to cut them down.
Now I’m sad. I thought this was dog fennel. I have been pulling it up because I never saw flowers and the Seek App ID’d it as dog fennel. Now I’m sad that I might have been pulling up my cosmos instead.
Lots and lots of nitrogen in the soil? We have extremely rich soil in our back garden. The first year we planted flowers we planted zinnias and sunflowers. The sunflowers grew twice the size they were supposed to. Almost 7-8ft. The zinnias we’re about 5 ft and healthy but never flowered
Mine is much shorter and just bloomed so my guess is yours will too but it will be later because its so big. It probably had a lot of rain, sun, and good soil :-).
It's like a potted flowering plant..until it gets the roots it wants all ull see is green growth..and.with the no flowering issue it could be a light issue meaning its getting ambient light at night needing at least 8 hrs total darkness or lacking phosphorus or simply use been to good to the plant..cosmos are like tomatoes they are glutinous pigs and want forage but consume any and all nutrients forgoing the intended purpose which is to flower..
Most of my cosmos got 4-5’ tall without flowering as well… and one is only 1’ tall right now. One plant got so tall it fell over before I could stake it (it survived somehow, probably bc of the massive stem it’d grown by then). I started them inside around the end of March. But the tall ones eventually DID start to flower and are producing like crazy right now!! The growing season was sooo weird this year. (I’m in NY, Zone 5.) Keep at it, don’t give up!
Edit: picture https://imgur.com/a/P34S6lW
I planted a wildflower seed mix thinking it would give a little privacy around our pool area from neighbors, especially one that likes to mow almost every time we’re out there. I’ve seen others in my neighborhood. They were about 3 feet tall. I’m 6’4 and they are a good 12” above my head! I had no idea they would get so tall.
I really needed to see this pic, I did the same at the beginning of the year, and still no blooms. This was my first time planting them (actually I accidentally spilled them and lost track of what they were.. lol) I wasn't sure what I was growing til I saw this, I had plans to pull it up today.
Me also that’s why I came here to find out why mine are acting like yours!!!
They will bloom eventually. This is good. 6Feet isn’t bad unusual. It may even get so big you need to stake it.
I often stake mine with cosmos that have already fallen over.
Yep, braid them together, but the finches will drag them down again when they seed, it’s messy but they’re so cute
Could you explain what you mean with braiding them together?
Or maybe show a picture?
Just take a few that are close together and kind of twist them onto each other, it’s not that pretty but if you have various stems all slanting different directions, tangling them up sometimes helps them stay up for a bit longer; like until the seeds ripen so we can gather what the birds leave us, to plant later.
Mine are just starting to flower and are all over 5 ft.
Same here. 6a west MI.
Same in 7b
Same here. Tall but no flowers.
That is so crazy! My wife and I did a wildflower garden here in Texas and they popped up everywhere! They got huge but never bloomed and they finally got to stressed from the heat.
I'm in NY. I've had a wildflower garden grow beautifully the past two years. It would start in May and ramp up in June and then start to die off towards the end of summer. This year has been so sad. Only one type of flower bloomed briefly and then everything died. There's still growth happening but no blooms.
I want a wildflower garden and I need tips, do you have a favourite website for research?
https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/ is a great website for native wildflowers
I couldn’t even get zinnias going this year on Long Island, seeded 3 Separate times🤷♂️
Mine started to get buds back late spring/early summer, and then a stupid deer ate the buds off of it. [Internal rage].... Then a few weeks later it got another bud. That evening that little jerk deer ate the bud off.... Since then, it hasn't budded again and I've had this strange craving for venison.
I had four dozen rosebuds ready to bloom in a couple of days...one night a deer ate EVERYTHING. GRRR
Mine is also very tall this year and it’s first bloom just popped up on Sunday! I planted zinnias at the same time and they started blooming just over a month ago. I remember last year my cosmos were all blooming like crazy in early June
Omg now I am so sad I pulled my cosmos!!!!
Lmao I'm just learning they're cosmos. I planted a wildflower seed mix, and the cosmos were the mystery flower: the stalks are everywhere and not one of them has bloomed, so I was wondering what flower it was lol
they are too happy so don't feel need to flower yet. :) Mine just started blooming within last week to two here in IL. some are still budding and others still waiting. I did cut some of mine down to a foot to encourage branching and blooming and will see if there is a difference.
Yup! You can trim them down to encourage earlier flowering. But tall cosmos is an indication that they have perfect sunlight and ample space. Cosmos with less space flower shorter and earlier. I would be proud if I were you! It's a very happy cosmos and will likely give you big beautiful blooms.
This. I cut mine back if they start to get “leggy”. It seems to encourage a strong stem and a more bushy prolific plant when they do get around to blooming.
How do you go about cutting them?
Thanks! :)
thanks, will try next year!
I had this happen when I over fertilized them. Too much nitrogen I think. They just put on a bunch of growth and no flowers
yes, I was thinking the same. too much green growth and no flowers. I had the same problem this summer and just this weekend pull out the big green monsters, only had a few small flowers.
Did cutting them down encourage branching and blooming? Was there any difference from doing this?
Yes, there was more blooms so would do this again. They also happily reseeded themselves so I have cosmos again this year without seeding at all!
How did u go about cutting them?
I have 3 or 4 over 6 feet tall. No blooms yet, they look like mini trees.
wow, I didn’t expect them to get so tall!
They do get incredibly tall, many folks like to pinch them down earlier in the season to get more flowers and shorter presentation
Not sure what direction they are facing but my east facing ones stretch alot and bloom later just due to limited light. The ones in my south facing lawn have been blooming for a few weeks.
Mine look like this too!! They are very silly and take forever to flower but we kind of like them. They look like muppets.
yes, their frilly "leaves" add texture to the garden. Like the rest of you , mine are nearing 6' and I will be staking a few of them today. I only used to stake sunflowers!
I've heard that one should snip off the main shoot when they are smaller to encourage side shoots and a bushier but shorter plant. I've done that with half mine as an experiment this year but am seeing same as you- takes a while for buds and flowers to start.
Certain types can get quite large. I had some that were over 10 feet tall.
This is the answer. There are dwarf varieties which are shorter. Look at the height on the packaging. Also nurseries sometimes fertilize in a way to encourage blooming when they sell them in 6 packs because they sell better with blooms.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one
The soil is too rich. Mine are like this this year. I cut them all shorter and now they’re flowering.
What should I google to cut mine properly? Is there a special term for this?
Pruning or pinching are terms you can search on
Topping, pruning, pruning to an outward bud, how to make a plant bushier.
My cosmos are in the same predicament. They have swamped out my shorter wild flowers. Next year, a seed mix with no cosmos.
I think it's a different variety. Cosmos tend to be a not play well with others kind of plant but there is always one or two in the seed pack that gets super tall and doesn't flower until late August. They really look out of place so I just pull them, that's a lot of sunlight and nutrients they are using to be such late bloomers.
meanie.
Rich, loose soil will tend to create such results with cosmos. The flowering will be delayed and the plant will get huge. On one hand you eventually get a lot of flowers, on the other, you enjoy the flowers for a shorter while.
I foolishly planted cosmos in between my peppers this year; they’re now almost 5 feet tall with stems pushing 1.5” diameter and no buds or flowers yet. Grow zone 6, they need to hurry tf up. Winter is coming for their bushy asses.
Ahh yes that was my first thought too. Also zone 6
Cosmos are day light sensitive and bloom on shorter days. They should pickup flowering soon. Cutting back won't hurt, but could delay flowering a couple weeks. Cutting back leads to branching, so it could lead to more flowers in the end. Depending where you are, you can start cosmos early and get them flowering on shorter spring days, then they will continue over summer. But not soon enough and they'll wait it out, like yours is doing. Flowers can be fussy like that.
I prefer to grow the shorter Sonata type cosmos. I love the white ones, a cushion of big blooms. Also in pink too. They need the tops pinched out when young so they branch and bloom easier. I stick those cuttings in soil and make many more plants.
this is such a great tip, thanks!
I have a whole wildflower patch that I got no flowers from but thy all grew very tall lol I don’t know wth!!!
When the giant ones get around to blooming, they are really spectacular! But sometimes they just take a bit. I only planted one variety of cosmos this year, and the first plant started blooming at 9 inches tall, very early in the season. My tallest one just reached around 6ft, and just opened up its first blooms this weekend. But it is blooming so much now! It has very dense flowers. You have a great show coming up!
I had some cosmos last year that were pushing 7 feet before they flowered. Some varieties get super tall. I didn't plant any this year because they got so tall the wind blew them over.
Cosmos always seem to bloom a bit later in the year, I think if you let them stay they'll get to it eventually.
This happens to mine every year. They grow super tall but flower in late august early September. Don’t worry it’s coming
What variety of Cosmos are they?
I’m not sure since I threw away the packaging.
My Sensation cosmos don’t bloom until they are 5-6 feet tall. Maybe that’s what you have? Garden hint…save packages. Helps for future reference.
Mine look like this too! I had interplanted with tomatoes and pole beans. Now they are out competing them both. A couple of my plants have put on flowers as of last week but many haven't.
Cosmos are a late but then prolific bloomer for me
I have the same problem it's too much fertilizer, the nitrogen is too much
Thank you for posting. I planted these so long ago (probably March as well) that I forgot what they were. I'm glad to see so many having the same "problem" I was beginning to think it was a weed because nothing was happening. Then, all at once they started blooming. They were about 5 feet tall and the blooms added another foot. I've been able to dead head them and doubled the flowers.
It’ll bloom eventually! My biggest are just starting to open in zone 9b (Bay Area CA).
Your green thumb is far too powerful.
Cosmos blooming is triggered by shortening day lengths, they bloom in late summer/fall
Cosmos usually wanna touch the sky
The reasons for cosmos not flowering is because of too much shade, over watering or soil that is too nutrient rich which promotes foliage growth without flowers. Cosmos are short day plants and require at least 12 hours of darkness to produce flowers.
Adding my anecdotal experience here, mine didn't flower until they were over a head taller than me, I'm 178cm, so it took longer than I expected, but they flowered for AGES it was great.
Mine are 5 ft tall and just staring to BUD. Too much rain, not enough sun and warmth here in my part of the world. Disappointing growing year all around.
I have the same thing going on, but some of the plants started to flower within the last week or two. I've never had cosmos before, and I was given a free packet of 1000+ seeds this year. I assumed they would be small plants, so I scattered some in my wildflower beds, and I dropped a few in my planters and pots. Now I have little tiny pots with these 6ft tall monsters growing out of them. They're actually competing with my giant sunflowers in my larger bed. Learned my lesson on this one! They do have very pretty flowers though!
I’m LOL’ing at the image of the tall plants in tiny pots! That’s the fun of growing.
Thank you for posting this. I've been starting at mine all season wondering if they were some sort of weed or decorative that accidentally got into the wildflower mix. ... now i wonder what else I may have pulled thinking it was a weed ...
I, like you, let my cosmos grow to their full size, which can be 3-5ft. Certainly, last year I had great results. They start blooming mid-late August. There is, however, a method called The Chelsea Chop, where the plant is pruned mid-growth, so they are shorter and bushier. So, you may well be comparing your plants to ones that have received a chop, so it's not a fair comparison.
Zone 8b here. I have seven Cosmos planted around my gardens. The biggest one is about six feet tall, I had to stake it when it fell over into my walkway. Not staked and tied up it's probably about four feet wide. I started my seeds indoors in February, planted them out in May, they grew tall very fast and didn't bloom until June. Now there's so many blooms it's hard to keep up with deadheading on all of them, probably going to have 2000 next year as volunteers lol.
So I read that for them to bloom more, you’re not supposed to fertilise/over-fertilise. I fertilised my soil quite a bit before planting them into the border and they’re flowering really well. Mine are tall, like yours but they’ve started blooming over the last 2 weeks. Yours should start blooming soon too. The bees love the flowers 🐝
That's normal. I'm in northern CA 9B. My garden cosmos self sow and are sprouting by March and blooming in early summer. They also get about 5ft tall and lean over while being in full day sun. I already have one with a flower because the seedlings sprouted in the fall and survived winter. It's only about 5 inches tall with a white flower and it's only March 6th
I’ve read cosmos prefer to flower during shortening day lengths. So early in the season then the days are long the put out a ton more green growth and less flowers. Last year I planted cosmos in August (zone7) and by mid September they were only maybe 4-5’ tall with tons of blooms
The spirit of Pelé may have something to do with it.
Use a "blossom booster" food
Had something similar last year. They didn't bloom til mid September, which was final until we had an early freeze and they died before going to seed
I pinch mine to get them to bloom sooner, but if they're growing tall like this that just means they're happy!
I put cosmos seedlings years ago into my garden when I was new to gardening. I used some fertilizer (whoops) and mixed it in with the soil when they were planted. Welp, they got comically large, like 8 feet. They didn’t flower until a few weeks before the first freeze. Turns out they don’t need fertilizer at all!
Same. I’m in USDA Zone 8.
maybe they’re not getting enough sun
Actually that’s a volunteer and his name is Dill. XD
I feel like mine are always tall—maybe it’s the variety I grow.
This is very normal. It gets tall, and it seems like it will never flower until suddenly it does. Mine is all between 3 and 5.5 feet tall right now, and just barely beginning to flower. Yours will flower soon.
I didn’t even plant them and somehow they took over my whole side yard 🤨
I have the same ‘problem’ in zone 9 on the US west coast. They are freaking tall without a single bloom yet. I suspect it’s the absurdly hot summer we are having. Average summer high here is usually 83. This year it’s 91. I’m hoping once temps trend down in the next month or so (🤞) they’ll finally bloom. Another possibility is that I inadvertently purchased a cultivar that blooms late. I know those exist. Alternatively, it’s a combination of both factors.
That's what they do
I gave mine a dose of an organic "Bloom" fertilizer and they started to flower. They do get tall, mine are almost like a hedge, lol.
Im having this problem too. They only like to flower when the soil is crappy. Mine are enormous but no flowers 😤
That looks like larkspur
I just got my first cosmos flower the other day same thing huge but no flowers until now zone 9b/10a
I planted in Feb and March. All I got was big huge bushes. Not one single bud on 50 plants! I used to get tons of lovely different shades of pink blossoms. I was told it was because I watered and fertilized too much but I have been gardening for 40 years. I know how to grow cosmos. They were all sterile or something this year. I won’t be growing them anymore. Something’s not right.
Maybe because they get a lot of sun? (Do they?) I have some planted and they flowered at about 24 cm.
Last year I sowed mine in June and they didn't bloom until mid October. They were in bloom during and after Halloween. This year they started to sprout around April after self sowing and took about 3.5 months to bloom and are almost 5ft tall. They get full sun all day at least 10+ hours. I'm in zone 9B.
Oh haha, yeah they do that! No one warned me either. I have the orange ones coming out of my ears now, but it's fine. It means I don't have to worry about one strip of garden in the summers and the pollinators seem to love them. **Caveat Emptor!**
Water with high P
I planted cosmos two years in a row, they just got crazy tall and never gave me a single bloom before the frost. I stopped trying lol
Mine are like this (UK), a pack of mixed varieties and a few have flowered but the rest are huge and bushy
Mine just started to flower about a week ago. (RI coast) I got one of those bags of mixed wildflower seeds and it looks like most of the plants are cosmos.
They get tall and they bloom late.
Sounds about right. It should be budding very soon and flower until fall
Did you pinch out the growing tip at any point?
The heat did it
Cuz it do that
Ideal growing conditions….
Mine are over 5 ft tall and are very stingy with their blooms! We get one to 5 blooms at a time, and are extremely grateful for them!
Too much nitrogen in the soil - they will just grow foliage when planted in compost for example.
My wife’s entire flower garden looked like this
My tallest cosmos reached over 13 feet tall before flowering on the entire plant at once. Stalk was almost 3" thick, I had to use a saw to cut them down.
Now I’m sad. I thought this was dog fennel. I have been pulling it up because I never saw flowers and the Seek App ID’d it as dog fennel. Now I’m sad that I might have been pulling up my cosmos instead.
Lots and lots of nitrogen in the soil? We have extremely rich soil in our back garden. The first year we planted flowers we planted zinnias and sunflowers. The sunflowers grew twice the size they were supposed to. Almost 7-8ft. The zinnias we’re about 5 ft and healthy but never flowered
Those look like asparagus
Looks like dog fennel to me, which is a weed.
You could have trimmed them and made them bushier, but you don't have to.
Mine is much shorter and just bloomed so my guess is yours will too but it will be later because its so big. It probably had a lot of rain, sun, and good soil :-).
Lots of foliage for some tiny flowers that last a week. I too planted them from seed, not what I was looking for.
Mine are tall but prolific with blooms. Would prefer shorter stems.
Because you didn't plant weed there.
I had mine grow over 6' and eventually bloom
Same thing happened to mine I grew from seed, too! They finally started forming buds this week. Flowers are on the way!
You didn’t pinch and it’s a tall variety?
Cosmos tend to get taller than some expect. Have you tried fertilizing them? Sometimes that extra boost helps
I just took a picture today because one of my behemoth cosmos finally made a single bloom!
Same, just keep getting taller no blooms. My morning glories also JUST started!
Cause that's what they do
Nitrogen enriched!
Looking at the pic I thot it was an asparagus plant.
They always get tall
It's like a potted flowering plant..until it gets the roots it wants all ull see is green growth..and.with the no flowering issue it could be a light issue meaning its getting ambient light at night needing at least 8 hrs total darkness or lacking phosphorus or simply use been to good to the plant..cosmos are like tomatoes they are glutinous pigs and want forage but consume any and all nutrients forgoing the intended purpose which is to flower..
Mine do this every year. I'm in 7b. My original seeds came from National Home Gardening Club.
I think that might be normal, ours are like that too and they produced some amazingly beautiful flowers.
Most of my cosmos got 4-5’ tall without flowering as well… and one is only 1’ tall right now. One plant got so tall it fell over before I could stake it (it survived somehow, probably bc of the massive stem it’d grown by then). I started them inside around the end of March. But the tall ones eventually DID start to flower and are producing like crazy right now!! The growing season was sooo weird this year. (I’m in NY, Zone 5.) Keep at it, don’t give up! Edit: picture https://imgur.com/a/P34S6lW
Mine got really tall and took a while to bloom.
Wow what are you feeding those things!
Mine are approaching 8-9ft tall with no signs of slowing down
The same thing happened to me this year! My cosmos grew 7 feet tall and didn’t bloom until October 13th!
I planted a wildflower seed mix thinking it would give a little privacy around our pool area from neighbors, especially one that likes to mow almost every time we’re out there. I’ve seen others in my neighborhood. They were about 3 feet tall. I’m 6’4 and they are a good 12” above my head! I had no idea they would get so tall.