Guide to choosing and planting marigolds

Marigolds have been treasured in gardens for centuries; even the Aztecs grew these golden bloomers. To get them to work in your garden, follow this simple guide for choosing and planting marigolds.

Marigolds fill several positions in the garden:

• Use as a colourful edging, forming a ribbon of gold, yellow, or mahogany at the front of a sunny border
• Use as bedding plants, where their different colours can be arranged in blocks side-by-side to form a patchwork
• Plant in a container or window box to add a splash of colour
• Scatter through the vegetable garden; their pungent scent is used to repel insect pests both above and below ground

• Plant a grouping of several hybrid American marigolds (Tagetes erecta) to liven up your garden. Sometimes called African marigolds, American hybrids stand one metre (three feet) tall and produce a bumper crop of rounded, ruffled, powder-puff shaped yellow to orange blossoms up to 10 centimetres (four inches) wide
• Go for the Inca series if you're looking for good cutting flowers. If you want the unusual, try a white-flowered one, such as 'Snowdrift'
• Stately American marigolds like full sun and rich, fertile soil, and should be watered to prevent wilting when rain doesn't furnish adequate water weekly. Because of their height, American marigolds sometimes need staking to support their tall stems when they are heavily laden with their large flowers
• For daintier flowers, choose French marigolds (T. patula), which are native to Mexico and shorter at 25 to 45 centimetres (10 to 18 inches) tall with a broader range of colours including yellow, orange, and brick red in single, double, and semidouble forms. Good varieties include 'Janie' and 'Sophia'
• French marigolds thrive in full sun and lean soil, and are used to repel rootknot nematodes, a serious soil-borne pest that attacks many species of ornamental and edible plants in warm-winter climates
• For a window box combination or a garden edging, select the subtler flowers of old-fashioned signet marigolds. Signet types, such as 'Lemon Gem' and 'Golden Gem', stand only 30 to 38 centimetres (12 to 15 inches) tall and have lacy foliage and a profusion of button-sized, five-petaled blossoms. As a bonus, the flowers of signet marigolds are edible

• Scatter seeds on garden soil 15 to 20 centimetres (six to eight inches) apart after the danger of frost has passed, cover them with a sprinkling of soil and water gently
• The seeds will sprout within a week
• Two or three weeks later, you'll see plants produce the first of many marigold flowers to come
• Occasionally spidermites or grasshoppers may munch plants in late summer. Dispatch mites with a strong stream of water. Tolerate damage from grasshoppers, which are usually too numerous to control

Few flowers are as easy to cultivate as marigolds, which explains why they are often a child's first experiment in gardening. Famous for their profuse floral performance, marigolds begin blooming a few weeks after sowing and continue to produce fiery-coloured blossoms throughout the summer, no matter what the weather happens to hand out.