Add a sweet treat to your garden with chocolate cosmos flowers. Pollinators love these gorgeous blooms. Get expert growing tips.
Grow Pretty and Fragrant Chocolate Cosmos Flowers
Updated on Feb. 10, 2025
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Chocolate Cosmos Flower Care
Chocolate cosmos flowers sprout from tender tubers that can be grown as annuals or brought inside for winter in cold climates. They ultimately reach up to 30 inches tall, growing best in a sunny garden patch. These flowers bloom from midsummer into fall and are easy to care for.
Why we love it: This cosmos is a fabulous, guilt-free way to enjoy chocolate. The fragrance even smells like chocolate cake.
- Cosmos atrosanguineus
- Zones: 9 to 11 or Annual
- Attracts: bees and butterflies
- Light needs: Full sun
- Size: 30 inches tall
- Grown for: Big chocolate colored blooms
- Foliage: Feathery, fern-like leaves
Where to Buy Chocolate Cosmos
Chocolate cosmos typically produces little, if any, seed, and in the past was started from pieces of its fleshy tubers (underground stems). Many growers now use micropropagation, or tissue cultures, to create new plants, making them more available to gardeners.
The cultivar choca mocha is a compact variety that typically performs well in containers. Instead of trying to harvest seeds, look for these plants at a reputable online source or local garden center.
Chocolate Cosmos Leaves
The lacy, ferny foliage is a delight to behold. This plant is attractive even when grown in lean, dry soils.
Companion Plants
Bees and butterflies love this plant. For the ultimate pollinator-friendly garden, grow these flowers with bee balm, coneflower, black-eyed Susan and calamint.
Next learn how to grow poppy flowers.
