CALENDULA 21 



CALENDULA 



''Pot Marigold** 



Old-fashioned flowers though they be, the Pot Marigolds 

 occupy a very important position among Hardy Annuals 

 because there are few flowers so easily managed, so cheaply 

 purchased, or so brilliantly effective when grown in large 

 groups, in beds or borders. In the garden of the cottager 

 or the artisan they bloom as freely as in the garden of the 

 merchant and the prince, and no matter what kind of a 

 season it may be, the Marigolds do their full share in the 

 adornment of the garden. 



The common Pot Marigold is Calendula officinalis {Com- 

 positce), a native of Southern Europe, and one that grows 

 about i| foot to 2 feet high, forming a bushy plant that yields 

 a long supply of flowers 2 to 3 inches across, and these 

 may be single, semi-double, or double. The very double 

 sorts are neither common nor beautiful, but the varieties with 

 several rows of ray florets are the most useful and attractive. 

 The florists have rounded the flowers and broadened the ray 

 florets, as well as produced a number of distinct shades of 

 colour. A few fixed varieties of great merit are Meteor, orange- 

 yellow, striped lemon-yellow ; Orange King, brilliant orange, 

 and more double than most; Yellow Queen, golden-yellow; 

 Prince of Orange, orange, with pale yellow stripes ; and 

 Lemon Queen, soft lemon-yellow, double. Of lesser value 

 but still worthy of cultivation are C. arvensis, 2 feet, yellow ; C. 

 maderensis, 2 feet, orange ; and C. cegyptica, i foot, yellow. 



All the Calendulas are hardy, and in the case of C. officinalis 

 self-sown seedlings come up with the persistence of weeds. 

 Sow both in Spring and Autumn where the plants are to 

 flower and thin the seedlings to a foot apart at least. The 



