~Saving Marigold Seeds~

Marigold Seeds
(File Photo)

The small Marigold plants that were placed in pots on our deck this past Spring grew and are still adding so much color to our yard. An added plus was that those little bunnies did not hop up the steps to investigate. Seeds from these beautiful flowers can be saved and sowed next Spring. Like with Zinnia seeds, it is an easy process. Snip off the colorful flowers and dry them out. The seeds are long, slender and black. So many seeds can be harvested/ saved and planted next Spring after the danger of a frost is past. Marigolds are very pretty flowers.

Orange Marigolds
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Usually a long planter filled with yellow and orange Marigolds is also found on our deck.

My "Orange Pineapple" Planter
(File Photo)

In the past few years I have planted both Vinca and Marigolds together in pots for added colors on our deck. They also grow well together. If you have been enjoying Marigold flowers these past few months, consider harvesting some of the seeds to plant next Spring.  

For my complete instructions on saving Marigold seeds, click here.

Next Spring plant the seeds in the ground or in planters. Beautiful flowers!

Happy Gardening!

   

Saving Marigold Seeds

Big Orange Marigolds

O.K., now that we have saved the Zinnia seeds it was time to also harvest the Marigold seeds!  In the Spring we purchased Marigold plants that would have BIG yellow and orange blossoms.  We had visions of beautiful brightly colored blossoms in our gardens.  Well, all did not work out exactly as we had wished for.  Our drought brought a reduction in outdoor watering in my town.  Still our flowers managed to do o.k.  The new mulch helped a lot! Unfortunately, the rabbits enjoyed dining on the yellow Marigolds! The yellow flowers and the green plants! The orange colored flowers- they did not bother with.  It sure was strange to see large plants with bright orange flowers next to very small green plants.  Transplanting 2 of the small plants into pots was a good solution to seeing yellow blossoms this summer!  They are doing very well.  Those plants were definitely survivors, so I decided to save some of their seeds.  

Once again, the process of saving Marigold seeds is easy:

The colorful flowers are snipped from the stems and placed in a cut down Kleenex box to dry out.  After they are dry, the dried seeds will be separated from the stems.  The Marigold seed is slender and black.  It is attached to the dried out brown petal.

Saved Marigold Seeds
(File Photo)

The dried seeds will be placed in business sized white envelopes that are labeled/ sealed.  I saved seeds from both types of plants- the plants with orange flowers and the plants with yellow flowers, so they were saved in separate containers. 

**Note:  In your garden as the flowers dry out on a green plant, you can also save these dried flowers. Just pull the dried petals off and save the seeds.  This skips the process of drying out the blossoms yourself!  

Happy Gardening!
Enjoy!