Cosmos Hot Chocolate not only has that amazing colour of chocolate heated on the stove, it also smells like chocolate, although you do have to get up close to the flowers at the end of a warm day to notice it. This gorgeous perennial with long slender stems will produce masses of flowers if it is given a rich diet - lots of old sheep manure, compost and a general fertiliser worked into the soil at planting time makes for a long and prolific flowering season.

The flowers look wonderful among blues, deep reds and oranges. Try several among Gazania ‘Sunset Jane’ or in the foreground of Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’. ‘Hot Chocolate’ is stunning too in front of Achillea ‘Terracotta’.