The Cosmos Purity by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden features a single white bloom with a yellow center, standing out against green foliage—ideal for moon gardens or adding stunning white flowers to your cutting garden.
The Cosmos Purity by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden features a single white bloom with a yellow center, standing out against green foliage—ideal for moon gardens or adding stunning white flowers to your cutting garden.Cosmos Purity by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden features white blooms with yellow centers and lush green foliage, ideal for bright, peaceful gardens or as a beautiful addition to your white flower cutting garden. Perfect for planting from seeds.A bumblebee gathers pollen from the yellow center of a Cosmos Purity bloom by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden—its wings and fuzzy body in sharp detail against a soft green backdrop, inspiring your white flower cutting garden.Cosmos Purity from Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden displays white blooms with lush green foliage in front of a small white shed, while purple flowers and leafy trees enhance this charming cutting garden on a bright day.A yellow circular badge with a black and white bee illustration, featuring "RHS PLANTS FOR POLLINATORS" around the edge—ideal to display with Cosmos Purity flowers from Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden.Cosmos Purity by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden features white and pale purple moon garden flowers with green leaves in a patterned clear glass vase, set against a plain light background.Close-up of Cosmos Purity by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden, featuring white blooms with yellow centers and lush green foliage—ideal for moon or white cutting gardens. Flowers bloom under bright blue skies with blurred colorful backgrounds.A bee rests on Cosmos Purity by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden, featuring clusters of small white blooms and tall daisy-like flowers—ideal for a white flower or moon garden, with lush green foliage as the backdrop.
Annual Pollinator

Cosmos Purity

Cosmos bipinnatus 'Purity' — the definitive white Cosmos

£2.40approx. 100 seeds

Pristine silky white petals around a small golden disc — the definitive white Cosmos for cutting, weddings and the moon garden. Glows in evening light.

Sowing months
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Height
90–120cm
Spread
50cm
Spacing
45cm
Position
Full sun
Soil
Poor, lean, UNFED soil only — the most important rule for all Cosmos
Grow guide
How to grow Cosmos Purity
Read the full guide →
About this variety

Broad silky white petals around a small gold disc, 8 to 10cm across, on airy stems at 90 to 120cm. If you grow one white flower for cutting, this is a strong candidate.

White is the most useful colour in a bouquet because it makes everything beside it read more strongly. A jug of mixed cottage flowers with 'Purity' through it looks brighter than the same jug without. It also glows at dusk in a way coloured flowers do not, which is why it turns up in every moon garden and every evening border.

The drawbacks are the ones that come with white. Rain spots the petals brown and they stay spotted, so cut ahead of a downpour if you have a use in mind. And it self-seeds enthusiastically. Volunteers will come up for years and gradually drift back towards pink, so pull anything that is not white if you want the planting to stay clean. It is half-hardy, flowering July to the frosts, and it wants lean ground. Feed it and you get a six-foot green shrub with a dozen flowers on it.

Plant alongside

Cosmos Purity pairs beautifully with these cottage garden classics

Cosmos Sensation Mixed
Cosmos Sensation Mixed
£2.50
Ammi majus
Ammi majus
£2.20
Cosmos Daydream
Cosmos Daydream
£2.60

RHS Plants for Pollinators

This plant has been assessed by the Royal Horticultural Society and recommended as especially beneficial to bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Growing plants like this directly supports UK pollinator populations — something close to our hearts at Salle Moor Hall Farm, where we see the difference a cottage garden full of the right plants can make.

Learn more at RHS.org.uk →