How to grow marigolds | House & Garden

Blazing in shades of orange, gold, peach, and red, marigolds inject the garden with warmth and cheer during summer and into autumn. The flower name encompasses two types of plant: Calendula and Tagetes. Both are easy to grow from seed and boast the fascinating ability to attract wildlife and, in turn, stave off pests in the vegetable garden.

There are 12 species of calendula, many of which hail from the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Our native field marigold (Calendula arvensis) has small golden daisies, but the Spanish pot marigold (C. officinalis), which bears large orange daisies, is the main type grown in gardens, with a variety of hybrids readily available. Pot marigolds are excellent cut for the vase and bloom more abundantly, for longer, if regularly harvested or deadheaded. Having big seeds and edible flowers, they are also super plants to grow with children. In ancient Rome and Greece, calendula was used to dye fabric, cosmetics, and food. It was used as a tisane and topical herb in ancient Egypt, and, today, is widely used to soothe irritated skin.

The tagetes genus encompasses 49 species from Mexico and other parts of the Americas, including the garden forms we refer to as African (Tagetes erecta), French (T. patula), and signet (T. tenuifolia) marigolds. The plants exude a delicious, pungent scent, especially when deadheaded (which ensures they flower over a long period). Because of their wildlife benefits, modern gardening favours single-flowered T. tenuifolia and single forms of T. patula. The bushy marigolds we grew as bedding plants in the '70s and '80s were double forms of the so-called African marigold; it is in fact native to Mexico, where it is known as cempasúchitl and used in abundance on the