Snobs should stop looking down on marigolds
“You LIKE marigolds?”
There was a stunned silence after I professed an admiration for these flowers while touring a seed company’s trial garden several years ago in Chicago.
Masses of golden and orange marigolds were undulating like a wave through the gardens looking — to me, at least — magnificent. Yet my companions, garden writers from all over North America, were appalled at my trashy tastes.
“I’ll never plant them,” harrumphed one woman, who was from a swanky part of Connecticut. She shot a withering look in my direction and asked: “You’re from Canada, aren’t you?”
Then, as I nodded, she turned to her female companion with a superior smirk as if to say, “Well, that explains everything.”
Poor persecuted marigolds. Forever disdained for their down market image. In just about every country (except perhaps Mexico, where they originated), garden snobs dismiss these striking blobs of colour as hopelessly garish. Vulgar. Not worth a second glance. In fact, plant any type of Tagetes (the Latin name for marigolds) and you’re immediately labelled a rube: the kind of gardener who goes in for pink plastic urns, gnomes holding fishing rods and AstroTurf carpeting the front yard.
Yet, contrarian that I am, marigolds turn my crank for several reasons.
First, they are joy to grow from seed. Nothing stops a marigold. Down in my gloomy basement at the end of winter, the tiny seedlings emerge like clockwork. And, in those initial stages, they look so dainty. Although the foliage gets coarser with age, the plants start out as such perfect little charmers, they remind me of miniature bonsai, not a wisp out of place.
Second, I love to have marigolds in my veggie patch. They are a fixture every summer, poking their colourful cheery heads up amid the whacking great zucchini leaves and chard. I plant them partly because the strong scents of marigold leaves are said to keep bugs at bay.
Nothing stops a marigold. Down in my gloomy basement at the end of winter, the tiny seedlings emerge like clockwork
But whether that’s true or not, their brashness is simply fun. And they will grow in any soil, requiring no care at all.
You can find a bewildering number of marigold varieties, in many shapes and sizes. But they all belong to the Tagetes family and are mostly divided into two basic types: African and French. (Don’t confuse them, though, with the heirloom Calendula marigold, which is a different species entirely and which I also love.)
I prefer marigolds with layered zinnia-like petals to the big round “mop tops.” This year, I’m trying Summer Splash, which produces delightful flowers of two different colours on one plant. (Seeds from reneesgarden.com.)
But my absolute fave is ferny, delicate Tagetes tenufolia. Often confusingly labelled “Signet Gem,” this kind doesn’t even look much like a marigold and produces small flowers. Yet it smells divine. Ruffle the foliage of “Lemon Gem” and there’s a powerful whiff of lemons.
The same goes for “Tangerine Gem” which actually smells of oranges.
Not enough gardeners know about the “gems,” probably because started plants are impossible to find in garden centres. But Richter’s Herbs (richters.com) and some other suppliers sell the seeds. Sonia Day’s latest book is a novel called Deer Eyes. soniaday.com