Phyl - if it helps any...I haven't had many annuals start blooming yet either...the cold, damp spring following a very dry Feb/March has had an impact on the soil! The bugs might be remedied by ladybugs and praying mantis...I've found the more diverse my garden is, the less "bad" bugs I have! Just count on a great profusion of fall flowers!
I am going to put some fish emulsion on this weekend, hopefully that will help speed things up!

Good luck and hang in there!!
Wendy

Crickets, grasshoppers, earwigs, slugs and snails. Those are my guesses for the half-eaten look. You can trap and kill slugs and snails with half-buried margarine tubs of beer, and trap earwigs in rolled-up newspaper (then shake them out into a bucket of water and drown them), but I don't know a way to control crickets and grasshoppers organically. I stomp all I can catch and just sigh over the holes in the flowers.

What did you fertilize with? Was it a high-nitrogen, general-purpose food, or something more flower-oriented (lower nitrogen, higher phosphorus)? Lots and lots of nitrogen can cause lots of leafy growth but delay flowering. Being too close together can slow them down also; unless I could see the individual plants, I can't tell if they're too close together. If they are packed in shoulder-to-shoulder with no dirt visible anywhere, they probably are too close together.

Jeanne

Phyl,
If I remember, you had cold and rainy weather for a long time early this season -- longer than we had.

Cosmos are day length sensitive. Since you stated you planted these from seed, they won't begin blooming until August. They only way to trick cosmos into blooming sooner is to start them in seed trays, and plant out the plugs. This is what we do; and, actually they just started blooming about 10 days ago.

Zinnia foliage is one of the favorites of the Japanese Beetles. They love the zinnias -- second only to the dahlias. Our zinnias are planted about 8" apart. It doesn't sound like yours are planted too close. And, we always give them a shot of fertilizer high in nitrogen. We have to be careful on the timing of the fertilizer because it can cause weak necks on the flowers; however, it greens up the plant and gives the plant the length we need.

The Chrysanthemum carinatum I hate to tell you; but, DH plowed that under. The flowers were getting eaten all the time -- never any harvestable stems. And, lots of little bugs setting up housekeeping in all the plants. So, buh bye to the Chrysanthemum carinatum; and, hello to Copperhead.

Anyway, if you have buds, you just need to give them some time. Zinnias and Cosmos are technically a late season crop.

Wow, thanks Wendy, Jeanne and Patricia for all the info. I may thin them out a little more. Yes, the fertilizer I used was a generic Osmocote slow release type I think, and I may have used a generic Miracle-Grow type once as well. I should've thought about not using one with high nitrogen. I forget that it's the nitrogen that brings leafy growth...right? BTW, Patricia, what do you mean by "Copperhead?"

Oh, I went outside this evening & I did notice clouds of white bugs (are they "whiteflies?") emerge when I sprayed the plants with some Green Guard mixed with water (containing harpin-a plant protein) that I got basically free from GardensAlive! It isn't a fertilizer per se, but is supposed to help strengthen plants and encourage growth....when I used it once before, I swear it wasn't my imagination, but many of the plants looked like I'd put them on steroids! Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing! LOL Not sure what I should do about the white insects.

Looking forward to some blooms, as our daughter's wedding will be next weekend! Phyl