The adorable flowers with a yellow center and white or several shades of crimson, rose, pink, chocolate, lavender, or purple colors are a big attraction to cosmos. Are these flowers bunny-resistant?
Cosmos (Mexican aster or cut leaf cosmos) is a genus and common name for various flowering plant species in the aster, daisy, composite or sunflower family, Asteraceae or Compositae. Some of these herbaceous annual and perennial plant species are valued ornamental plants, together with their hybrids.
Cosmos are some of the lovely ornamental plants you can plant in beds, borders, containers, cottage gardens, meadows, cutting gardens, and prairie. Unfortunately, they are not rabbit resistant, i.e., the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach list cosmos as plants that are moderately to severely damaged by rabbits. However, they are safe, should you want to give your house rabbit some.
Therefore, if you want to grow these ornamentals native to Mexico and southern parts of the US, you need to protect them from jackrabbits, hares, cottontails, or wild rabbits. Otherwise, they will eat them, especially when they are still young.
With an average height of 1 foot to 6 feet 7 inches, the taller cosmos verities will be less vulnerable than the short ones once they have grown. We recommend to consider the following strategies for keeping rabbits away:
- Exclusion using a fence. A 1-inch, two feet high chicken wire buried at least 6 inches deep will deny access to your precious ornamentals.
- Use of the various rabbit deterrents (scare them away) as well as repellents commercially available.
- Consider doing away with any attracting factors such as bushes, tall grasses, or weeds.
- It would be best if you intercropped them with some plants that rabbits hate. However, this method may not be beneficial during food scarcity.
- Having a dog to deter them
- Shooting and trapping
- Use of homemade repellents
These are some ways to keep rabbits away from cosmos or any other landscaping, garden, flowerbed, or border ornamentals.
If you are interested in growing them, they thrive in 2–11 (USDA) hardiness zones, require full sun, bloom from summer to fall, and require well-drained soils. However, they can also thrive in dry soils, while ideal soil pH should be neutral to slightly acidic.
Finally, the most commonly grown species are C. sulphureus and C. bipinnatus. On the other hand, popular cultivars and varieties include Bright Lights, Cosmic Orange, Peppermint Candy, Seashells Series, Chocolate Cosmos, Apollo Series, and Dwarf Cosmos, just but to mention.