By Catherine Bollinger

Pink cosmos flowers usually bloom through August. This year brought a surprise.
I grow most of my annuals from seed, partly because it's less expensive than buying flats of plants and partly because of the surprises. Even the most careful producer of seeds can't always ensure that every seed will produce a plant that resembles the picture on the seed packet. The biggest surprise this year came from a packet of pink cosmos flowers.

Most of those seeds yielded standard plants about 3 feet tall with typical delicate fernlike leaves and many medium pink cosmos flowers. The bees enjoyed them from spring until late August, when the plants began to decline.

But two plants differed from the rest. The stems on these two were three times as thick as the others, and the plants grew 6 feet tall. The plants were covered in luxuriant foliage – but no flowers. Another gardener might have tossed the mutants on the compost pile. But I was curious.

In mid-September, these giants began producing gargantuan flower buds. By the end of that month, they were covered in pink cosmos flowers that looked just like their more delicate faded sisters – only the flowers were twice as large, at least 4 inches in diameter.

They were spectacular right up until our late October freeze, providing favorite dining spots for frantic bumble bees and honeybees. I could almost hear them shouting in little bee voices, “Hurry, faster, the cold is coming,” as they argued over every grain of pollen.

The bees were right; the season for annuals has ended for another year.