“Strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues, the purple violets, and marigolds.”— William Shakespeare
For over fifty years I have received the seed catalog from W. Atlee Burpee and Co. in the mail. It arrives in early January and I have ordered seeds over the years but nothing recently. The company was founded by sixteen year old Washington Atlee Burpee in 1874 as a business that sold poultry. When he discovered that he could earn more money selling chicken feed than he could selling live birds, Burpee began growing seed crops and eventually expanded to vegetable and flower seeds. In 1915 David Burpee took over the business after the death of his father. David was partial to marigolds, even campaigned to have it declared the national flower. (The rose won.) He began breeding varieties for bigger blooms and scentless plants but his unattainable goal was a white marigold. In 1954 David Burpee initiated a challenge to his customers to develop a big white marigold with a prize of $10,000 offered. It took until 1975, when, in Sully, Iowa, Alice Vonk had success. Her tall white marigold was christened 'Snowball’.
“They never explained why a flower with gold in its name would be more desirable in white.”— Eleanor Perenyi
Tagetes, the marigold genus, is derived from the name of the Etruscan god, Tages, who emerged from the first plowed earth. Our garden marigolds are native to the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala. Seed was taken back to Spain by the conquistadors where they were planted in monasteries and introduced to France and Northern Africa where the plants naturalized. In 1535 English travelers found the marigold Tagetes erectus growing in Tunisia, in North Africa, and it is now called the African marigold. These are the plants with big, full pom pom blooms. The variety grown in France, T.patula, is referred to as the French marigold and are shorter plants with smaller, more numerous flowers.
Three other species are worth noting. T.tenuifolia, known as the signet or lemon marigold, has abundant small single-petaled blooms with lacy foliage. T.lucida, or Mexican tarragon, has yellow blooms on three foot plants and foliage that resembles tarragon in taste. In the Linnaeus Botanical Gardens in Uppsala, Sweden, a unique version of T.patula has been renamed T.linneaus’Burning Embers’. I have grown this in past years and have seeds for the coming. Handsome rusty orange flowers with a gold edge are Bourne on shrub-like brittle stems.
Marigolds have a long history of use in their native lands. The De La Crus-Badianus Aztec Herbal of 1552 made claims for cures for insomnia, hair loss, wounds, hiccups, and the effects of lightning strikes, as well as an aid to “one who wishes to cross a river or water safely.” In pre-Hispanic times the Aztecs venerated Mictecacihuatl,the goddess who ruled the underworld and watched over the dead. Her flower was the marigold, a symbol of the beauty and fragility of life. Depleted souls were attracted by the color and scent of the plant. Present day celebrations of Dia de Los Muertos/Day of the Dead are a blend of Aztec and Christian traditions and marigolds play a part.
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”— Evard Munch
Across the world in India it was the Portuguese who brought marigolds over 350 years ago. These flowers of the Americas are now central to Hindu ceremony. During Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, garlands of marigolds adorn doorways, window frames, and sacred figures. Weddings in India use marigolds to symbolize a happy and prosperous married life with the “herbs of the sun” bestowing brightness, positivity, and happiness. Mounds of marigold blossoms are displayed in morning markets, separated by color, for daily use.
Marigolds are important to companion planting in organic gardens. Claims that the roots of marigolds secrete substances that kill nematodes, that the scent repels beetles, aphids, and white flies, and that proximity increases growth in tomatoes are believed by some and not by others. But one point is true— the blooms attract pollinators which every garden needs.
One more benefit of marigolds brings us back to the young Washington Atlee Burpee and his chickens. In the 1960s the owners of Ralston Purina asked David Burpee to grow marigolds to add to their chicken feed. Commercial feed was low in xanthines or yellow pigment. Marigolds are high and are now added to chicken feed to create sunny yolks. So, if you have chickens and want dark yellow yolks grow a bunch of marigolds and feed them to your birds.
“Marigolds gain enormously in impact when used as sparingly as ultimatums.”— Henry Mitchell
February 2022