Marigold: bee-friendly medicinal plant with many talents
by Michael Watson (comments: 0
Beautiful, useful, healthy: the marigold is a real all-rounder in the garden. We humans use it as a medicinal plant; bees and other beneficial insects love its nectar; and pests are repelled by the marigold. Marigolds are therefore beautiful and versatile. No wonder it is one of the oldest ornamental plants in the garden.
The marigold(Calendula officinalis) is an annual wildflower that belongs to the Asteraceae family. Although the marigold - strictly speaking - is not a native wildflower species, many wild bees are delighted by the radiant flowers.
Name | Marigold or garden marigold |
Botanical name | Calendula officinalis |
Family | Compositae (Asteraceae) |
Type | Asteraceae (Asterales) |
Order | Asteroideae |
What does a marigold look like? Identification aid and external characteristics
The marigold is not at all difficult to recognize. The herbaceous, annual plant usually grows between 40 and 50 centimetres tall. In exceptional cases, however, it can grow up to 80 centimetres high. Its square stem grows upright and is covered with fine hairs. The stem usually has few or no branches.
The unstalked leaves of the marigold are elongated with a rounded tip and (like the stem) slightly hairy. Their shape is lanceolate or obovate and the leaves are 3 to 13 centimeters long and 1 to 4 centimeters wide.

Are marigolds bee-friendly? Insect friendliness and occurrence
Researchers are still not quite sure where the marigold originally came from, but many place its origins in the Mediterranean region. Thanks to its healing and useful properties, people have been cultivating calendula for thousands of years. Calendula can therefore be found throughout Europe today. In regions with nutrient-rich, loose soil, calendula even grows wild.

Bees and other insects love marigolds. As soon as the orange blossoms worship the sun, they are visited by honey bees, wild bees, butterflies and bumblebees. Other beneficial insects, such as lacewings and hoverflies, also like the marigold and a special symbiosis develops here: the adult flies feed on nectar and pollen and in return their larvae eat pests from the leaves of the marigold.
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Marigolds are relatively easy to grow and bring many benefits to the garden. Apart from its aesthetic value, marigolds repel pests such as slugs, nematodes and wireworms. It also attracts beneficial insects such as psyllids and hoverflies, whose larvae kill the aphids on other plants. So it's a win-win-win situation! If you have problems with aphids or similar in your garden, try planting a few marigolds.

Marigolds like sunny locations with nutrient-rich, loose soil. Like the other wildflowers in Bee friendly bee seed, marigold is also a light germinator. This means that the seeds need light to germinate after sowing. Therefore, you should not cover sown marigold seeds with a lot of soil. Ideally, you should sow your marigold seeds between April and the end of May - but if you are late, you can plant them until August. You can easily grow marigolds in the garden or in a flower pot or tub on the balcony.
When watering, it is better to keep the marigold a little too dry than too wet. The garden marigold can cope with short dry spells without any problems, but it doesn't like waterlogging at all. You don't really need to fertilize the marigold if you have planted it in nutrient-rich soil. If your marigold is in a bee meadow, you should avoid fertilizer anyway, as many other bee-friendly wildflowers do not tolerate fertilizer. Dead flowers can be plucked off.
Marigold is not a perennial plant, so you don't need to worry about overwintering it. If you have it in a wildflower meadow, it is advisable to mow the meadow in autumn and remove the green cuttings so that you have a colorful flower meadow again next year.
The marigold as a medicinal plant
The marigold has many uses outside the garden: Calendula ointment, calendula tea, calendula tincture, calendula cream. Calendula flowers are also edible and have been used for thousands of years in salads or to color food. Marigolds are also used in cheese production.