Speaker A
Have you ever wondered if cosmos are a good crop to add to your cut flower farm and if they would be profitable, sustainable, and easy to grow? If that's your question, I recommend that you stick around for this video, and I'm
Discover why cosmos are a beautiful, productive, and profitable cut flower crop, with tips on growing, varieties, and harvesting.
Key Takeaways
- Cosmos are an affordable, easy-to-grow flower ideal for cut flower farms with high yield potential.
- Proper pinching and netting improve stem quality and plant productivity.
- First bloom flush is the most valuable; second flush may be less productive depending on climate.
- Variety selection impacts stem strength and vase life; Afternoon White is highly recommended.
- Succession planting and timely harvesting maximize profitability and flower quality.
What the video covers
- Cosmos are warm-season tender annuals that bloom in frost-free, sunny conditions and are easy and cheap to grow.
- They can be started indoors or direct seeded, and often reseed themselves naturally in the spring.
- Pinching cosmos at 6-12 inches encourages branching, resulting in many cut stems per plant.
- Cosmos are 'cut and come again' flowers but the second bloom is usually less productive than the first.
- Popular varieties include Afternoon White (strong stems, best vase life), Apricotta (beautiful but shorter vase life), Double Click series, Piro (buttery yellow), and Rubenza (burgundy for fall).
- Plants grow tall and often require netting to prevent stems from falling over.
- Recommended planting spacing is about 9 inches apart, with about 260 plants per 50-foot bed, yielding 6-10 sellable stems per plant.
- Harvesting is best done at the cracked bud stage before full bloom to extend vase life, but slightly more open blooms are preferred by florists.
- Cosmos bloom prolifically in fall and benefit from succession planting every few weeks for continuous harvest.
- While some find cosmos annoying to harvest, they remain a favorite for cut flower farms due to ease of growth and strong market demand.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Cosmos as a Cut Flower Crop
- 01:08Growing Cosmos: Seeding and Pinching Techniques
- 02:06Reblooming and Crop Management
- 02:57Recommended Cosmos Varieties and Their Traits
- 03:43Planting Density and Yield Estimates
- 05:37Harvesting Tips and Flower Quality
- 06:35Flower Growth Habits and Netting
- 09:16Personal Background and Farming Journey
- 10:16Flower Farm Marketing and Sales Insights
- 12:09Challenges and Benefits of Growing Cosmos
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
going to tell you all about it. Cosmos are these flowers that are behind me. And there's a lot of really great things to love about cosmos. There's also some things that people really dislike about cosmos. So, let's just
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break it down. Cosmos are really good to grow for a lot of reasons. So, in general, they're a warm-season tender annual, which simply just means that they bloom during the warm days and they don't tolerate frost. So, you want to
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plant them when you're frost-free, and then you can just grow them in direct sun. They like that. They're really great because you can start them indoors, and they also direct seed really easily.
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They actually also reseed themselves very easily. So, it's kind of fun in the spring because I'll see cosmos volunteering popping up all over the place, which is super fun. So, that is one great thing about them. So, I have
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definitely direct seeded them many times in my life, and it just makes a nice option for growing on your cut flower farm. The other thing is they're very cheap to grow. Like the seeds are very cheap, and then you pinch them when
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they're 6 to 12 inches tall. You pinch them back to about three leaf nodes, and they will branch from there, and they will branch significantly. I was looking at some of these stems that I've cut off of, and some of these plants, like one plant
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has 13 cuts that I made off of it. So that can vary based on variety, but one plant can give you a lot of growth, and then they will reflush. So like I talked about with zinnias, zinnias are cut and
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come again, which means they just keep sending up more and more shoots. Cosmos are technically a cut and come again flower, but they're more like you cut the whole, like the whole thing blooms at once, you cut it all, and then they'll
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send up a second flush. I don't find the second flush as great. And I've really kind of wondered, is it worth it to grow a second flush, or is it better to just rip it out and grow something different
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or start fresh or start new? So, I've done both. This year, I did let most of mine re-bloom. So, let me know in the comments. I'd love to know what you do on your farm and what you find
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profitable. But I have heard people say, you know, cosmos are amazing. You cut them all, you cut them back, you fertilize them, and they'll just regrow and give you a whole another crop. I haven't found that to be super the case
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in my situation, but maybe that's because of where I live. I'm in West Michigan in zone 6A, so I don't know, maybe they don't have enough time, but mine will re-bloom, but I just they're just not as great. But the first flush,
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the first cuts are amazing. Our guinea fowls are going crazy. What in the world?
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I don't know what they're all upset about. Anyway, just ignore them. Cosmos also come in a lot of really great colors and shapes or forms. So, there's doubles and singles. I really like, in my opinion, the most superior white cosmos
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is called Afternoon White. That's the one that I find is the best to grow. It just gives you really strong, sturdy stems. So, cosmos look really great.
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They grow really tall. I always net cosmos because otherwise they will fall over. In my experience, they grow very tall. Some cosmos they'll grow really tall, but their stems are really spindly, and when you grow them for cutting and you cut them, they'll just wimp out and crash, and they won't hold in a vase at all. So you
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got to kind of know which varieties are good for cutting. They're all super tall and great in that aspect, but some of them just are not as good for cutting because they kind of wimp out. So I like
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Afternoon White. The Double Click series is good. They do have a Double Click White, and that one's okay, but I still think that the Afternoon White is better in my opinion, and my florists tend to really like it. And it's this really
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gorgeous single white. I mean, it is like perfection, like the most perfect, beautiful flower ever. And then the variety behind me right here that's blooming out is called Apricotta. I was talking with another flower farming friend of mine here that lives just a
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couple miles from me, and she was like, "I think Apricot cosmos are my favorite flower ever." And they really are just really stunning. They have different striping in them. They're beautiful. I love them. I would say they're not as
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good a vase life as the Afternoon Whites, but they're pretty good. Like I said, I also like the Double Click. I really want to grow more cosmos. I really want to grow a variety called Piro. K I R O, which is like a buttery
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yellow. I've heard a lot of really great things about that from other flower farmers. So, I definitely want to add that to my flower farm. And then Rubenza is a great burgundy kind of color. Great for the fall. I don't know that I'd have
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that in July, but I definitely want to add that to my fall lineup. Like, I want a whole bed of it. So, how much do I plant? Well, I actually now this year I started planting them with my paper pot
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transplanter, which isn't like a real typical thing, but if you're on my school flower farming, you might want to look into what a paper pot transplanter is. I did a video about it. I'll link it in the description. Basically, you plant
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them 9 inches apart, and you want to pinch them. And that's kind of what I still do. So I did estimate in like a 50-foot bed I get 260 or somewhere right around there. So you get a lot of plants, and
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then you pinch those, and then each plant, let's say, gives you six to 10 usable sellable stems. So you're going to get a lot of cosmos off of 50 feet of cosmos.
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So what I usually do is I grow like 50 feet of white, 50 feet of apricot. Like I like to grow about 50 feet of each color. In the fall here, I did this bed of mixed. This actually was white and
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apricot, and I sold all the white like immediately. It's just been a really great seller for me. One thing is I think each succession has about three weeks. So every time you plant, you can harvest off of your crop for about 3
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weeks. And like I said, it really flushes. So you can harvest for about 3 weeks, and then it's going to be pretty much not producing anything until it reflushes, which takes a couple of weeks. Also, I just harvested this last
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kind of bunch of flowers, which are my daughter was just out here, and she said, "Mom, these are dying." [laughter] I was like, "Yeah, they are." Wouldn't have typically even sold this, but I had a wedding florist. She's doing a
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little event, and she needed one bunch. She was like, "Please, like, anything that looks okay. I'm sure it'll be fine." So, anyway, this is what I got.
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And then in the fall, actually, cosmos love the fall. They like the shorter days. They bloom really prolifically, and they're great. They will also bloom in June as well, but they love the shorter days. So, don't forget to fall plant a
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succession. And a succession simply means that you plant the same crop multiple times. So you do a planting multiple times. So cosmos, I've been planting three times. Okay. So what's not to love about cosmos? Cosmos are not one of those flowers that you can just
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cut twice a week. You really got to stay on top of cutting them and harvesting them at the proper harvest stage. A lot of people say to harvest them in the cracked bud stage, which I used to do,
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like really, like they're not even fully open yet, but you can see they're colored up and starting to open. Because the idea is you want to get them before the bees pollinate them because when the bees pollinate them, then it triggers the
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plant to die, and the blooms will fade. That is true. I just find that my florists really appreciate it when they're more open. So what I tend to do is like if it's in cracked bud stage at night, by the morning it'll be open.
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plant to die and the blooms will fade. That is true. I just find that my florists really appreciate it when they're more open. So what I tend to do is like if it's in cracked bud stage at night, by the morning it'll be open and
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it's probably not very pollinated. Bees don't pollinate at night. And so I get them when like the first bloom is open.
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I just think they sell better and they seem to last just as long really. So, what will happen is you'll have a spray of buds on a cosmos stem and that first bloom will fade and shatter, but then
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the rest of the buds will continue to open to a certain point on that stem.
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So, they will keep, you know, blooming and opening for the end customer. Especially like for wedding clients and wedding customers, like wedding florists, they they need them more open and they want them more open. And so I just find that they appreciate the
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product more if they're more slightly more open. The other thing I do is if I cut a stem that has some blooms that are already pollinated, I will just clip out those buds and it will still leave me,
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you know, with a really good spray of buds on that flower stem. So I do that as well. So, yes, that is a little tricky and a little tedious. And people don't love that you have to dead head
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them, you have to harvest them every day, or they're really tangly. I don't find them very tangly. The thing is with the netting, you can either do two things. You can either bring it down through the netting, or cosmos are so
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tall, most of the time, I'm cutting at the netting. Like, I'm just cutting them as at the netting. So, I'm not messing below the netting. Now, in the fall, this succession didn't get as tall because it's in the fall, but in my
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summer successions, they were significantly taller than this. And you could just cut them at the netting, and you don't even have to worry about the netting. I don't think it's that big of a deal. Okay, let me tell you my cosmos
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story. It was 2019. I had three children, three and under, very small children, and I just felt like, I need to do something. I I need to get outside with these kids. and I drove by a flower farm called Threeacres Flower Farm.
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Maybe some of you are familiar with Lori and she lives like three miles from me.
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I had no idea who she was. And I drove by this flower farm. That was in 2018, actually. I was like, "Wow, that's so cool. You could grow flowers." And we had just moved here to this 2acre property in Michigan. And I was just
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like coming out of the Air Force as a nurse. And so, you know, you go from this like full-time job, working a lot of hours to having three kids, boom, boom, boom, all three right in a row, moving. And I just felt
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like I didn't know what to do with myself. So, I was inspired by Lori and thought, maybe I can grow flowers, too.
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But I had no idea how to grow flowers. I'd never tried to grow flowers. I I mean, beside like, you know, like patunias, right? Like like landscape flowers. So, I thought, okay, well, I'm just going to take a year, like
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absolutely no pressure, and I'm not going to try and sell anything. I'm just going to grow things. And so, I started researching cut flowers. I actually took Lor's course, like the backyard gardener, backyard gardening 101. It's not a farming course. It's just a
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growing course. It was amazing. It It's really great. Actually, I have taken a lot of flower farming courses, and Lor's course about growing flowers is one of the best I've ever seen. Like, she's a very good teacher. But like I said, it's
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not a farming course. And so I took this her her little course about growing a cutting garden. And I just started growing seeds, right? Like nothing big investment here, just getting seeds. And so one of the things was Cosmos, which I
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don't even know if I could have told you what a Cosmos was before I started, you know, researching growing flowers. I grew Cosmos and I did everything like Lorie said, right? Like I started them, I pinched them, I netted them, all the
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things. They were taller than me. They were like cosmos trees. They were amazing. I was so incredibly blown away with with cosmos. I just I just loved them and they were super fun and beautiful. They're very whimsical and
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have a lot of movement. I mean, they're just lovely. That's how my journey with Cosmos started. And then I I started flower farming. I really wasn't sure what avenue I wanted to go in. Like I really thought I would sell retail. And
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then I took Lisa Mason Ziggler's course on farming in 2020. And I thought, you know, I think this might work better to sell to florist with my small children.
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We didn't really want people on our property, right? This whole like how do you do this? How how am I going to sell my flowers? Which, by the way, if you want to learn how to sell flowers to
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florists, I have a download free tips for selling flowers to florist. And so that's how I sell flowers. So, if you're interested in that, check out the link in the description below. So, I started growing these cosmos and I grew them for
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my farm. And then I was like, yeah, these are really kind of annoying. I don't know that I really want to dead head them. In my flower farming journey, I have been pregnant two times. So, I had three children before I started the
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farm and then I've had two more kids. So, there have just been a few years where I have not tried to grow my business. I've just tried to maintain I actually didn't grow Cosmos one year and I can't even remember what year it was.
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And saying that right now, I feel like, oh, that was I can't believe I did that, but I did and it was fine. And then I reintroduced Cosmos in very specific varieties and I think that was it. like
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I wasn't growing the same varieties that I'm growing now. I don't even remember what exactly I was growing, but the varieties that I think I'm growing now are superior to those and they're better cut flowers and they sell better and I
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know the systems of how to do it better since then. You know, 2019 I grew them, was completely amazed and then somewhere along the way I stopped growing them, but I've definitely been growing them for at least three years. But I love
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them and they're actually a crop that I want to grow more of because they are so profitable. I was just looking at my Rooted Farmer Analytics, which is the the online marketplace where I sell my flowers, and they are my fifth in sales
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for 2025. And the season's not done yet, and it's a little strange, like not everything is accounted for, and I'm pretty sure they're going to become fourth in my complete, you know, sale for 2025. They're just a really great
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flower. Wedding and event florists really like them, which I sell to a lot of wedding and event florists. And so I'm looking to add more cosmos to my cut flower farm. But I know um like Shannon from the Dirt on Flower, she's like, "I
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hate cosmos." Because she hates harvesting them. Sometimes people do really find them annoying, but I think usually they win out on a flower farm because they're so easy to grow and everybody wants them. You can grow a lot
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of them in a really small space, which makes them really profitable. So I'd love to know in the comments, what team are you on here? Like do you love Cosmos? I love their whimsical, beautiful, you know, arching heads and
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just they're they're just so beautiful. The fact that they sell a lot or you find them hard to sell and you don't really grow them on your farm and I have heard people that sell retail don't love them as much from what I've heard from
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different flower farmers, some more retail flower farmers say they're they're not as great of a crop. So, I'd love to know what your thoughts are. If you enjoyed this video, I highly recommend that you go check out the
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video that I did about companula. They're an amazing spring flower and you probably still have time to plant them and I think they're just such a stunner for spring. I order them from Plugs. If you like this video, go check that one
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out for knockout spring sales. I think no matter how you sell, compana is just an amazing flower for a cut flower farm.
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And until next time, thanks so much for joining me. I look forward to seeing you next time.
Topics:cosmoscut flower farmingflower varietiesflower farm tipssuccession plantingflower harvestingAfternoon White cosmosApricotta cosmosflower vase lifeflower farm profitability
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