Cosmos Apricotta

Soft daisies in pale apricot and peach, often warming to blush at the tips, with the colour shading across a single flower as though it had been brushed on. Most cosmos are vivid pink, magenta or hard white. This one is a watercolour.

At 90 to 120cm on airy stems it gives a long cutting stem, and vase life runs seven to ten days if you pick when the buds are just cracking rather than fully open. The ferny foliage earns its place before any flower appears.

Two things to know. It is half-hardy and flowers July to October, so it needs a frost-free start and will give you nothing early. And cosmos in general resents rich ground; fed and watered it makes a magnificent leafy plant and very few flowers, while lean soil and a degree of neglect produce the crop. The soft colour is also more susceptible than most to going muddy in a wet dull August, so it repays an open sunny position.