Xanthos Cosmos Seeds

Well, it’s a breakthrough for the Cosmos family—the first-ever true yellow is now available for you to grow from seed. Xanthos is a glorious new variety, setting masses of 2½-inch blooms with petals that shade from primrose at the tips to golden at the base, surrounding a dark yellow center. Ideal for cut flowers and irresistible in garden and container, they open from early summer all the way into fall. Won’t the butterflies be delighted?

Xanthos is a dwarf plant reaching just 20 to 25 inches high (in full bloom) and 10 to 12 inches wide. It is quite free-flowering, especially if you pinch the tips of the stems during the growth process, so that it sets more branches. It begins flowering a week or two before most other C. bipinnatus varieties, and will self-sow happily for you. This is an open-pollinated variety, happy to share its wealth. So even though it’s an annual, if you save the seed or let it fall in the garden, you need buy seed only once.

Awarded the Fleuroselect Gold Medal in Europe, Xanthos is that rare thing, a truly new look for a familiar plant. It earns its honors with easy care, generous flower yields, and a long season of color. You will love it in any sunny, well-drained setting.

Simply direct sow the seeds wherever you’d like lots of quick, long-lasting color. (You can also start them indoors, germinating at about 65 degrees. If you do this, transplant them young so they can get established as soon as the spring soil has warmed up.) A little more than 2 months after germinating, the plants are in full bloom. The flowers are great in vases too, keeping their color and holding up their heads over a long period. And the plants will thrive even in poor dry soils, making them ideal for blazing-hot trouble spots as well as beds, borders, and walkways.