Vibrant Acres Colour Farm
 
Orange Cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus) is an amazingly productive plant. Once it starts to flower, we have a hard time keeping up with the harvest! It seems that every morning, we look out the window and it’s ready to be harvested again. It’s also very gangly and we try to plant rows of shorter dye plants in between our rows of Orange Cosmos or we have a hard time getting down the aisles by mid-summer! 
 
The bees absolutely love the flowers, and harvesting must be done with care to not catch a bee unawares. We harvest basketfuls of these flower heads and dye them immediately to preserve their colour and vibrance. Orange Cosmos dyes a vibrant pumpkin orange colour on both wool and cotton.