Pineapple marigold
The fragrant golden flowers of pineapple marigold bring welcome cheer to the winter garden, writes JACKIE FRENCH
Back in the days before my husband, Bryan, asked if we could stop having open garden tours, every summer tour up the left side of the house was prefaced with, “The bush you are about to see is not Cannabis sativa.” In winter, though, everyone would stare at the profusion of gold blooms on the pineapple marigold bush and simply say, “Wow!”
I’m not familiar with the growing habits of C. sativa, but there must be sufficient similarity for those who gazed at the 1.5m bush with feathered foliage to suffer under a misapprehension, although one sniff would have been enough to tell them they were wrong. Nothing else smells like pineapple marigold – certainly not the sweaty-sock stench of annual marigolds that subtly spreads through the house if you’re tempted to pick a golden cluster.
Not that the scent of Tagetes lemmonii is truly pineapple-like. Some catalogues list it as passionfruit marigold, lemon marigold, Mexican marigold or ‘a lovely tree marigold with a hint of mint and tangerine’. Some people even detect a banana odour. Just brush past it, and your skin and clothes are scented for hours. Add that it’s one of the toughest, most prolific winter bloomers, with flush after flush of golden flowers from late autumn until spring, and you have a magnificent specimen for your garden.
TAMING OF THE BUSH
Pineapple (et al) marigold has one problem: for six months of the year, it ranges from boring to a mess, unless you tend it. Once the flowers die off, you are left with winter-bitten leaves on long, straggly branches, dead flowers still clinging. The entire effect is depressing enough to distract you from a nearby host of daffodils.
The answer, of course, is to prune it. I attack mine as soon as the blooms begin to die. ‘Attack’ is the correct word. Roses need skill, patience, secateurs and gardening gloves. Pineapple marigold just needs the branches that have bloomed to be snapped off near the base. Then a 1.5m bush quickly becomes a 60cm fuzz of attractive lime-green growth. You can stick the twiggy prunings in the ground or in a pot of damp soil in autumn or spring, and hope they grow (some will). I don’t bother pruning the bush all at once – I just snap off 2–3 branches each time I pass by to pick some lemons. In a few weeks the job is done, and my clothes have been scented with pineapple (or lemon or passionfruit...).
The strong perfume also repels pests, such as aphids, from the plants growing around the bush, although our birds regard aphids as a pre-dinner snack, so we’re rarely troubled by them anyway. Marigold species, generally, are said to help repel nematodes in the soil, but this depends on the species of nematode.
Grow pineapple marigolds for their sheer profusion of golden winter flowers and cheerfulness, as well as their tolerance for drought, hot winds, cold, rain or total neglect. Just give them full sun and they are content. And with frequent sniffing, you might just settle the question: what exactly do they smell like? Pineapples? Tangerines? Banana bread with lemon icing? Or possibly the entire fruit salad, with just a hint of mint.