Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Ken Johnson, Horticulture Educator with University of Illinois Extension, coming to you today from Jacksonville, Illinois with a garden bite. And on this week's garden mite, we're gonna continue our look at the 2025 year of plants and for this week we're gonna talk about calendula. So calendula is a genus of about 15 to 20 species of either annual or perennial herbaceous plants. They're in the aster or Daisy family or Asteraceae.

And in many places in the world, they refer to as marigolds because of their bright orange color. Here in the US, the plants we call or commonly referred to as marigolds are the genus Tegetis, which are native to Central and South America. Whereas calendula, is native to Europe, North Africa, West Asia, kind of Mediterranean region. The most commonly grown species of the species, if you're growing calendula, more than likely you're gonna be growing is going to be calendula aficionalis. And this is native believed to be native to Southern Europe, but it is so widespread and been grown, for such a long time.

They're not entirely sure where that species originates from but most more than likely somewhere in Southern Europe. The genus Calendula, comes from Latin, from the word calendae, meaning first day of the month. And the Romans, ancient Romans, observed that these plants were blooming on the 1st day of the month almost every month which gave rise to this genus name and that specific epithet or that species, the officinalis. That usually means sold in shops and is often given to plant species that were believed to have medicinal properties. So cholangia, cholangia officinalis, has been used for a variety of different reasons, throughout the centuries.

It's been grown as an ornamental since at least Roman times. Again, it has very pretty flowers, long bloom season So makes a good ornamental plant. Another good thing about, calendula is that they are very attractive to pollinators. So we have a variety of different bees that will visit them of various sizes. Flies, syrphid flies and other types of pollinating flies will visit them.

You may find beetles visiting and feeding on on the pollen, even wasps, will visit them as well for the pollen and nectar. So it can be a a very good plant to include in a pollinator garden as well. The plants, are are about 2, 2 and a half feet tall. There are some dwarf varieties that are about a foot tall. The stems are covered in fine hairs and the leaves of the straight species are kind of that quote unquote wild type, can be sticky and aromatic.

But a lot of our modern day cultivars that those qualities have been greatly reduced in them. So you may not experience that depending on the type of calendula you're growing. They will produce 2 to 3 inch sometimes 4 inch, daisy like flowers. Typically, they're gonna be a bright orange to yellow in color but there have been some white cultivars that have been, bred something like ivory princess and there are also bicolor cultivars that have been developed as well. So you have yellow and orange flowers on those plants.

There are also semi double, and double blooms, that can be found as well. So again, there's there's a good diversity of flower color and flower shape for these plants. They will bloom over a long period of time. So once they start blooming, they'll bloom almost continuously, until we have a heavy frost or a hard frost, especially if we deadhead the plants. And they also make good cut flowers.

So a very good ornamental plant looks good, planted in mass, on borders, very a very good, garden plant has it can have very many uses, in the garden. Like I mentioned earlier, officinalis refers to plants that are often believed to have medicinal properties. So, calendula officinalis was used, medicinally at times. Wasn't necessarily a major medicinal herbs back in the day, so to speak, but it was used occasionally to treat different ailments. It was also believed to have magical properties.

So if if you mixed it with some other things and stuff is believed that you could be able to see fairies, with it. It Was also used sometimes to help a woman choose between 2 suitors. So again, you take the calendula petals, mix them with some herbs, and rub those on yourself. And in the woman's dreams, if the suitor was nice to her in her dreams, he would be faithful and if he wasn't so nice to her, would be unfaithful and would help her choose her suitor. And the major kind of traditional use for calendula has been for cooking.

So another name for calendula is pot marigold or calendula aficionalysis pot marigold, because it was used often in broths or soups, as a kind of a pot herb, just something to mix in there. With whatever super herb or if you're roasting something, it was commonly used for that. So the petals are edible, they can be used fresh in salads, they can be dried, they were traditionally used to color cheese or as a substitute for saffron which gives rise to another one of his common names, a poor man saffron because it will import this, nice orange color to things, that it's cooked with. It's said to have a mildly sweet taste that is slightly bitter and as it dries, these flavors become more intense. So some people, may find that objectionable.

So before you before you use a whole bunch of it, try a little bit first, to make sure you like it. So again, use the color soups, stews, using poultry dishes, liqueurs, all kinds of different things. So if you're interested in growing, some calendula yourself, this plant does best in full sun, into partial shade. In hotter areas of the country, partial afternoon shade, can be helpful. This doesn't really like really hot temperatures so help keep it a little bit cooler.

But But if it gets too much shade it's gonna become, really leggy and the the number of blooms is gonna be reduced. So if you're gonna give a shade, afternoon shade but don't overdo it. These plants are very easy to start from seeds. And the seeds are quite interesting looking about a quarter inch to half inch long, curved or hooked in shape, look like a sickle, maybe a bent nail. Sometimes they'll have little little spikes on them, not really sharp but little projections on them.

Because of their relatively large size, it's easy for kids to pick these up. So if you've got kids or grandkids that are interested in helping start some seeds, this may be a good plant to to have them help start because of their size. And these can be, direct sewn into the garden just before the last frost date or they can be started indoors, 6 to 8 weeks. Some people do 3 to 4 weeks, before that last frost. Again, we kinda get a jump start on those and get those blooming a little bit earlier in the season.

Unfortunately for these, the seeds don't last terribly long about a year or so. So this is one it's probably gonna be best to buy new seed every year and not hold on to seed, over subsequent years because you tend to get to not have very good germination on older seed. Once they're planted, seed will usually germinate within 5 to 15 days. So relatively quick if the the the soils and the temperatures are warm enough. Once the plants are a few inches tall, you can pinch them back.

This is gonna help you get bushier plants, if you want that look. And these plants are gonna do best, in kind of moderate soil. They don't necessarily need a lot of fertilizer, moderate watering. So pretty low maintenance when it comes to fertilizer or watering potentially. Obviously, if we have a drought, we're just gonna have to give them some water but they don't need a tremendous amount of water.

Again, deadheading regularly is going to encourage bloom. So if you want that season long bloom, you wanna look at deadheading or looking maybe doing some succession planting planting, plants every few weeks if you don't wanna have to deadhead. If you don't deadhead, those plants will often produce seed and those seeds will often self sow. So if you're not deadheading and you you're fine with these, you may end up with a nice healthy patch of calendula, over time. Because these do oftentimes like a little bit cooler temperatures again in really hot humid conditions, they may struggle a little bit.

So they can be cut back to help promote, fall flowering if they're looking a little ragged after the summer. Again, plants can tolerate, some frost, but once we get a hard frost or temperatures really start getting down into the twenties, they will die. But they can they are perennial in zones 9 to 11. But unfortunately, it gets a little bit too cold here in Illinois to keep these around as a perennial. Now they are also relatively pest free.

You can have problems occasionally with aphids on them, powdery mildew, and interestingly, blister beetles. So I have seen blister beetles feeding on these. Typically, populations don't get high enough to cause a lot of problems, maybe some unsightliness here and there. With blister beetles, if they are crushed, they have a chemical in their bodies. They can cause burns.

So be careful when handling these. But they're they're an interesting beetle. The adults are feeding on plant material whereas the larvae are predacious. So the female blister beetles will lay their eggs in the soil. The larvae will hatch.

The 1st instar will call around, find grasshopper eggs, burrow into the egg chamber, and then it will molt into a legless, grub and, blister beetle larvae will feed on grasshopper eggs and then emerge the following year. So but that's another story, for another podcast. So, again, calendula, is another one of the 2025 plants of the year. Very good ornamental plants, easy to grow, provide a lot of good color, season long color to really any part of the garden and also makes a good cut flower. That's all I've got for you for this week's Garden Bites.

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