Cotton Thistle

Cotton Thistle  (Onopordum)

Cotton Thistle (Onopordum) belongs to a genus of about 20 species of bi-annual thistles. In the first year Cotton Thistle forms a rosette of foliage and in the second year they shoot up, flower, and die. Cotton Thistle is a large plant and will self-seed freely. Cut out the spent flowers if you do not want this. Cotton Thistle likes to grow in the sunshine in normal to dry soil and is suited to a natural garden. Cotton Thistle attracts lots of insects and birds enjoy the downy seed heads.