Hardiness zones
Sunset All zones
USDA All zones 

Landscape Use: Spring and fall flowering accent bedding plant in central Arizona, container pot plant. Marigolds are tough and dependable and make an excellent flowering bedding plant for children's gardens.

Form & Character: Herbaceous annual (can be a perennial in coastal southern california), upright, dense to open, informal, festive, warm, inviting.

Growth Habit: Moderate growth rates ranging from 8" to 16" height for some French marigold selections up to 40" height for some African marigold selections. Succuluent stems will produce adventitious roots.

Foliage/Texture: Leaves medium green, pinntified, and strongly aromatic with prominent mid-vein, arranged oppositely on the stem and almost sessile with tinges of reddish bronze; medium fine texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Small, terminal, vivid hot hues of yellow, orange, reddish-brown, maroon, and blended mixtures of terminal pom-pom flowers, single and double fruits inconspicuous, brown.

Seasonal Color: Blooms throughout the year in Phoenix.

Temperature: Summers are too hot and winters too cold for best vigor.

Light: Partial shade best during summer months, to full sun which is best for winter growth

Soil: Marigold needs organic matter added to desert soils for best growth along with a moist, well-drained soils

Watering: Regularly and frequently as needed

Pruning: Dead head (remove) spent flowers to extend bloom period

Propagation: Seed (requires about 40 to 50 days from seeding to flower), softwood cuttings

Disease and pests: None

Additional comments: Marigolds are nice spring and fall flowering annuals for flower beds in Phoenix if planted closely (spacing less than 6" apart) to form a colorful mass effect. Most cultivars exude a slight malodorous (some like it, others don't) scent from the characteristically pungent foliage and flowers. The roots of marigolds are reported to produce a chemical that kills soil nematodes. Most cultivated marigolds that may be purchased from local garden centers are hybrid selections.

Tagetes erecta - These are large flowered "African" or "Aztec" Marigolds. Plants are compact, stiff and erect, 12" to 40" height, flowers to 3 1/2" across, most cultivated selections have double flowers with flat or ball-like heads, colors range from primrose yellow through pumpkin-orange, there are no bicolors.

Tagetes patula - These are the French marigolds. They are generally smaller and more petite ranging in height from 12" to 16". Dwarf French marigolds grow to less that 12" in height, flowers are small (1" diameter) with colors ranging from yellow, gold or orange to bicolored yellow marked with brownish-red. Large-flowered French marigolds grow in height from 12" to 16" and have somewhat larger up to 2" in diameter. Varietal selections include flowers which are doubled, large single daisy-like or supercrested.

Triploid (Tagetes erecta x Tagetes patula) are hybrid marigolds (sometimes referred to as mule marigolds) that have large flowers to 2" in diameter with many flower colors (yellow through reddish borwn) that might also be bicolored. Finally, Tagetes tenuifolia are single flowering marigolds with simple, daisy-like blooms on long stalks.

There are 52 species of Tagetes world wide.