Calendula flowers can benefit soil, repel pests, and aid healing. I’ve been growing Calendula officinalis—also called pot marigold—throughout my garden for years, and can hardly contain my excitement to tell you all about it! Here are some of the many reasons this herb is frequently grown in the permaculture garden.
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Calendula will help reduce garden maintenance while yielding an abundance of useful flowers by doing the following things.
1: Calendula Protects Soil
Calendula grows especially well in the cooler seasons of spring and fall, though it will grow all summer long in mild climates, too. Since it has thick, fibrous roots and grows in thick patches, it can be used as a cover crop or as a living mulch to protect the soil. Just sow calendula seeds in the fall for a spring cover crop/mulch, or sow seeds in mid-summer for a fall cover crop to protect the soil throughout the winter.
Calendula will grow thickly and die back on its own, enriching the soil with biomass. Or it can simply be pulled in time for planting and composted. I leave calendula planted on the perimeter of my crops as a trap crop (see #2 below).
The benefit of growing a thick crop of calendula is that it can also be used as a cut flower. Calendula bouquets are a beautiful sight.
2: Calendula Repels Pests
One late summer a few years ago I noticed the stems of my calendula plants covered in aphids. I was alarmed and naturally worried that the aphids would be attracted to the crops around them. When I inspected the crops, I couldn’t find a single aphid—they were all on the calendula!
This herb truly lives up to its reputation as a trap crop—”trapping” pests such as aphids, whiteflies, and thrips by exuding a sticky sap that they find more appealing and delicious than nearby crops.
See: 6 Flowers to Plant in the Vegetable Garden
Aphids cover calendula stalks.
3: Calendula Attracts Beneficial Insects
Calendula flowers provide nectar and pollen that attracts pollinators such as bees and butterflies. The nectar—along with the pests that it traps—attracts beneficial insects such as ladybugs, hoverflies, and lacewings.
They even stay to mate and increase the number of beneficial insects in the ecosystem! (They will mate and stick around where there is abundant food.) As a matter of curiosity, did you know that ladybug mating can last up to two hours???
Here is what I found on the calendula in my garden recently (warning: beetle sex!):
4: Calendula Enhances Fruit Tree Guilds
For all of the reasons mentioned above, calendula is an excellent multi-functional plant for the permaculture garden. In fact, Gaia’s Garden suggests using it in fruit tree guilds and food forests.
5: Calendula Dazzles the Edible Landscape
Rosalind Creasy, in Edible Landscaping, encourages the use of calendula in the edible landscape because it brings such a bright, cheery flash of color. I’ve used calendula for years in my landscape, and I love it because it is both beautiful and low-maintenance.
calendula growing with broccoli
6: Calendula Aids Healing
Calendula has powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial properties, and is often used to soothe a long list of skin ailments including—but not limited to—cuts, scrapes, bruises, bee stings, insect bites, fungal infections, eczema, and rashes. That’s why I use calendula flower petals to make a healing calendula oil and a soothing salve.
healing calendula oil
Calendula is hypo-allergenic, so it is often used in personal care products for sensitive skin.
According to The Backyard Homestead, calendula petals also make a delicious medicinal tea. The petals are easily dried and stored.
Here are 14 other medicinal remedies using calendula.
7: Calendula Adds Color to Culinary Creations
Calendula flower petals—fresh or dried—will spruce up salads, cream cheese, or cooked vegetables.
According to Homegrown Herbs, calendula is also used as a natural food coloring for common foods such as cake frosting or broth. It can substitute for high-priced saffron to make golden-colored rice.
How to Grow Calendula
Calendula is an annual herb that grows in zones 3-9. Although it is an annual, it will easily self-seed in most climates.
I collect dried seed heads each season so I always have a supply of seeds.
a collection of calendula seed heads
Here is where you can buy calendula seeds. Sow seeds any time simply by sprinkling them on top of the soil and watering them well. If you can’t grow as much calendula as you would like, you can buy dried calendula flowers for your medicinal and culinary needs.
Calendula is such a joy, and I love sprinkling it around the garden each season.
Need more ideas for building soil in the permaculture garden?
Click here to get your 19-page Guide to Organic Soil Amendments!
READ NEXT:
- 4 Berry-Producing Shrubs that Fertilize, Too!
- 7 Ways to Fertilize the Garden with Comfrey
- What is Comfrey and How to Grow It
Would you like to learn more about using flowers to improve the biodiversity of your garden, reduce maintenance, and increase yield?
You’ll find loads of information just like this in my book, The Suburban Micro-Farm.
How do you grow and use calendula?
Sue says
I love growing calendula, but I lose plants to what looks like blight. I live in Virginia. Do you have any suggestions how to get my plants to last through the season?
Amy says
It may be that–like other crops–calendula would do well to be on a rotation in your garden? Perhaps taking a year or two off would reduce the incidence of the blight, which in general is usually caused by a bacteria or fungus that remains in the soil from year to year. Without its host plant, the pest should die off or move on.
Keep in mind that right about now is when all of my spring calendula is going kaput. I guess that’s the plight of the annual flower to not last through the entire season. I’ll save the seeds and cut back all of the scraggly-looking calendula and patiently wait for the young fall calendula to grow up greener and prettier.
Sue says
Thank you. That make a lot of sense. I have some calendula growing in my back yard. It is doing very well. I have never grown it there.
Amy says
Maybe we’re on to something 🙂
Milissa says
This is my first time growing Calendula. Thanks for the great recipes!
Amy says
Welcome 🙂
Karen says
Great info. as always. Last fall I grew calendula for the first time. It overwintered here and was so cheerful. I have starts coming up from the seed I saved. Easy plant to grow. Good to know about it’s “trapping” capabilities. It will have a spot in the veg garden near the cabbage plants. I use the flower petals in my chicken’s feed. It’s supposed to make the egg yolks brighter. 🙂
Amy says
Cool! I didn’t know about the egg yolks, but it makes sense!
Geraldine says
I think it may be to HOT here in Cadiz for the Calendula. We have very, very
warm Springs and the heat only increases as the months roll into summer.
Autumn is also quite warm.
Amy says
It is true that calendula may have a longer season for gardeners in more mild climates, but I’ve known several gardeners in hot, desert-like climates who do well with calendula. Simply sow seeds a month or two before your coolest and/or wettest season begins. Perhaps this is the winter season for you–calendula makes a great winter cover crop 🙂
Andrea says
Is there a specific kind of calendula seed you need to grow in order for it to have medicinal properties?
Amy says
You’ll want calendula officinalis for medicinal uses. Other varieties will be safe, too, but their focus is less on medicinal purposes and more on aesthetics. Officinalis is the most potent. Great question 🙂
Andrea says
I have been trying to google that question everywhere! Thank you so much for such an on-point answer! Do you have favorite brand?
Amy says
I’m so glad! I hate when I search for an answer that *should* be out there and I can’t find it. 🙂
I LOVE Mountain Rose Herbs* for medicinal- and edible- grade herbs. (*Affiliate link.) I’ve been buying from them since 2007 when I had my own little herbal soap company. Top-notch stuff.
Andrea says
That’s what I used last year, and didn’t have a single seed actually become a flower!
Amy says
Wow! Interesting. The seed packet I bought was so prolific that I was able to start saving my own seeds after that first year! I guess everyone’s growing conditions are different…
Cerena Childress says
@Geraldine There are heat tolerant varieties like Pacific Beauty and heat resistant Prince! There are probably others. Check for varieties at southern seed houses and from desert countries. Israel is famous for heat tolerant veggie plants they have developed! Good luck and happy gardening!
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/sceneff01.html
Kathleen says
When we bought our first house, I was seven months along with our third baby and could not do more that spring than rake up an inch or two of topsoil and throw in some seeds. What I had on hand was calendula. It came up bravely, bloomed madly until the hottest weather, and in September resumed blooming until Christmas. When I finally pulled the plants out the following spring, I was astounded to see that the smeary red clay I had barely disturbed the year before had turned into friable dark loam to a depth of six or seven inches. I can only think that it was the calendula that did it.
Connie says
I grew calendula at our last home and want to plant it here. I dried some of the petals for tea but don’t know what to mix with it. I don’t like the taste of calendula alone. Suggestions?
Amy says
I would try it with ginger tea , or maybe fennel. 🙂