Tagete tenuifolia is one of my favourites of the marigold family. It generally has many small single flowers over a long period. Whilst the red,orange and yellow colour combinations are striking the French, African and Mexican Marigolds cousins are blousy and brash by comparison.

Growing Tagetes

• The foliage has a musky, pungent scent. The smell deters some common insect pests and I grow them alongside my greenhouse tomatoes.
• Tagetes are often used in companion planting for eggplant, chili pepper and potato.
• Tagetes grow well in fertile heavy clay soils and in sandy soils
• Plants are not  frost resistant and need to be grown as half hardy annuals.

Seed Collecting

• Tagetes need a long growing season  to set seed in Britain. Sow  in March for flowering in  autumn
• Removing dead flowers before the seed is formed will extend the flowering season but reduce seed production.
• Each of the multitude of flowers will produce a clutch of seeds trapped in the soft semi open seedhead.
• The seeds are like small, fine quills with a black section and an off white feathery end that protrudes from the clutch.
• Collect when dry with the seedhead turning brown. The neck bends down prior to dispersing seeds.
• Store in an old envelope and avoid trapped moisture that can cause rot.
• I do not have any success with self-sown seeds so I collect my own seeds from the many produced.

Tagetes, ‘Tagetes Patula, Tagetes Lucida, Tagetes Minuta, Tagetes Erecta, Bolivian Coriander, Adenophyllum Porophylloid’ is the only book specifically on the species that I can find.

Other Names and Varieties

• Many varieties are available from Thompson Morgan
• Tagetes minuta is a weed in some areas known as Stinking Roger.
• French marigolds are really Tagetes patula.
• Pot Marigolds are not Tagetes but are Calendulas
• Tagetes Tenuifolia Lemon Gem is a bright 8″ high lemon flowering plant.
• Other Pictures