{"id":296,"date":"2015-09-01T04:13:43","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T11:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/?p=296"},"modified":"2015-08-25T05:45:38","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T12:45:38","slug":"colourful-african-and-french-marigolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/colourful-african-and-french-marigolds\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing African and French Marigolds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"african marigolds by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/6044670637\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6204\/6044670637_af45aea3a4.jpg\" alt=\"african marigolds\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A favorite annual is the Marigold or Tagetes. Bold colours in Yellows, Oranges, Lemons Reds and Creams are a feature of these plants that flower from July to the first frost. Despite the names they all originate from Mexico.<\/p>\n<h2>Description of Marigolds<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Members of the Tagetes family are half hardy annuals that flower profusely from July until September.<\/li>\n<li>African Marigold is the taller type 10&#8243; high with flower heads up to 3&#8243; across.<\/li>\n<li>French Marigold is a compact, bushier plant suitable for edging to flower beds and paths.<\/li>\n<li>Flowers are generally doubles coloured golden, orange, yellow, and white often with maroon highlights.<\/li>\n<li>Rounded discs or large florets display vibrant colours on thin deeply cut unassuming leaves.<\/li>\n<li>The leaves have a distinct scent that deters some insects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Cultivation Tips for Marigolds<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Easily grown from seed these plants flower quickly and can be sown in situ<\/li>\n<li>Cover seed with 1\/4 inch of soil and provide an average soil warmth of 24\u00c2\u00b0C if grown in a greenhouse.<\/li>\n<li>Plant African types 12 inches apart and French types 6-8 inches apart.<\/li>\n<li>Deadhead particularly the African types.<\/li>\n<li>Can be bought as plug plants in summer.<\/li>\n<li>Slugs and snails seem to love nibbling the foliage and can soon denude a plant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"african marigolds by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/5207603774\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4131\/5207603774_6f38acdfc4.jpg\" alt=\"african marigolds\" width=\"500\" height=\"408\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Varieties, Species and Types of Marigold<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Tagetes erecta &#8211; African Marigold. Tagetes patula &#8211; French Marigold. Tagetes tenuifolia &#8211; Marigold gems<\/li>\n<li>&#8216;Honeycomb&#8217; and &#8216;Safari Tangerine&#8217; have the award of garden merit AGM<\/li>\n<li>Marigold &#8216;Striped Marvel&#8217;Tagetes patula has yellow and maroon stripes<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/flowers\/calendula-collecting-seeds-and-flies\/\">Pot marigolds<\/a> or Calendula and<a href=\"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/tips\/growing-easy-plants\/tips-for-growing-water-loving-marsh-marigolds\/\"> Marsh marigolds<\/a> are a different species<\/li>\n<li>Tagetes are the smaller often single flowers. More than 150 years old and still going strong, the heirloom variety of French Marigold Single Legion of Honour fits this description<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Tagetes by brianpettinger, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/hortoris\/6211529196\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6188\/6211529196_1cbbc86f82.jpg\" alt=\"Tagetes\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Horticulture Sources and Advice on Marigolds<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>You can often obtain seeds or plants from our mail order company of choice <a href=\"http:\/\/www.awin1.com\/cread.php?awinmid=2283&amp;awinaffid=81944&amp;clickref=&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thompson-morgan.com\/plants1\/search.html?section=all&amp;search=marigold\">Thompson &amp; Morgan<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Easily grown from seed these plants flower quickly and can be sown in situ<\/li>\n<li>The &#8216;French&#8217; varieties tend to be smaller flowers in clusters on bushy plants<\/li>\n<li>Africans are larger and showy<\/li>\n<li>Some African varieties can grow up to 5 feet tall but have fewer poorer flowers. The finely cut leaves are still attractive. For a medium to tall selection try &#8216;Crackerjack&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>Marigold leaves keep white fly away from greenhouse tomatoes and I grow a few plants for that purpose. The roots are also reputed to kill or inhibit some weeds<\/li>\n<li>These plants are not to be confused with Pot Marigolds called Calendula<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/african-marigold1.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/search?q=marigold&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;rlz=1R1GGGL_en___GB345&amp;um=1&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;hl=en&amp;tbm=isch&amp;source=og&amp;sa=N&amp;tab=wi&amp;biw=1584&amp;bih=734&amp;sei=BLTHTrmHCMau8gObzuTUCw\">More marigold flower Photographs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A favorite annual for growing in the border is the  Marigold or Tagetes. Bold coloured flowers in Yellows, Oranges, Lemons Reds and Creams are a feature of these plants that flower from July to the first frost. Despite the names they all originate from Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flowers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenerstips.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}