There's no stopping gran's cosmos plants (From Bucks Free Press)

There's no stopping gran's cosmos plants

10:00am Thursday 4th October 2007 in Search By Lara King

A GREEN-fingered grandmother has reached cosmic heights with her supersized saplings.

Pam McKeegan, 66, put a handful of cosmos seeds in her garden at the end of May but the tiny plants have now shot up to double its predicted size.

"I've been growing cosmos plants on and off for years, and they usually grow to around three feet, or four at a push," said Mrs McKeegan, from Briery Way, Amersham. "But this time, one has reached five feet, and two have made it to an enormous eight!"

Mrs McKeegan's husband Robert, 70, who works as a caretaker at St John's Combined School in Lacey Green, has helped her tend to the plants, and is as bemused as she is by their spectacular size.

And although cosmos plants usually flower between July and October, the couple's striking specimens haven't finished yet. "They were all late flowering, and the top of the biggest plant is still in bud, so I think they might still be growing." said Mrs McKeegan.

"We've not done anything special to the plants, so we don't know why this is happening. We used manure as fertiliser, which is normal. I wonder if it could be down to the wet summer we've had, but in that case I'd expect lots of other people to be experiencing the same thing."

The couple's seven grandchildren, aged between six and 18, have enjoyed watching their grandparents' garden outgrow each of them.

Now, Mrs McKeegan wants to know whether her sky-skimming flowers are a record.

She said: "We often go for a stroll around Amersham of an evening and I've never seen anything as tall.

"They're a lot bigger than I would have expected, and my neighbours keep telling me they've never seen anything like it. Can anyone beat it?"