Price range: £1.85 through £34.00
Traditional marigold with attractive single orange flowers. Edible petals for salads and a lure to beneficial insects, particularly bees.
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Calendula Pot Marigold
calendula officinalis
Approx. 100-120 seeds per gram
Calendula, also known as pot marigold is an easy to grow hardy annual. It grows to a height of between 30 and 50cm. It has lance shaped bright green leaves and composite, daisy like flowers with bright yellow or orange petals. Calendula flowers over a long period and will self seed. It is a popular cottage garden flower and a companion plant to beans and tomatoes. This could be because Calendula attracts beneficial insects, like ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies, which eat aphids. The flowers are edible and the are also valued for their medicinal properties, chiefly as a salve for wounds as it aids healing, it is also very soothing to the skin. The flowers were also used as a natural dye for food stuffs and cloth. The seed is a strange shape, like a letter C and is actually an achene, which is a fruit which contains the seed.
How to grow:
Sow seed directly into well prepared soil from March until June. Rake over lightly and keep watered if necessary.
Alternatively sow in good organic compost singly in small pots and transplant when the plants are large enough at a distance of 30cm apart. Flowers from May to September.
Pests and diseases:
Calendula is easy to grow and does not suffer from any particular pests and diseases.
How to use:
Marigold petals can be used in many home preparations for cosmetic and medicinal use. As for culinary purposes the petals can be added to savoury and fruit salads.