Calendula is considered more medicinal than an ornamental plant. However, orange-yellow, bright flowers on a lush green background look more than attractive. A blooming calendula will look equally good both in a group, and in a single planting, in the center of the compositions or as a frame.
Sowing seeds for seedlings
Calendula cultivation by planting seeds for seedlings is more difficult than in open ground, but with this method, the plant blooms earlier.
Sowing seeds for seedlings is effective if you want to grow low varieties.
Optimal sowing time
Sowing seeds for seedlings takes place at different times. For early sowing in the ground - at the end of March-April, before the winter - at the end of autumn. Sowing under the winter is preferable if you expect early shoots and flowering.
Soil: preparation and care
Calendula when planting, and in the further care, does not cause summer residents a lot of trouble. The most convenient way to use for planting containers with drainage holes.
The soil can be bought ready (for flowering herbaceous plants) or you can prepare it yourself. In the latter case, take one part of sod land, one - sand, three parts of leaf and humus. This light mixture is best suited for calendula.
Calendula seeds are buried in the soil for three centimeters. Containers should be covered with foil. To maintain soil moisture requires regular watering, which can be supplemented by spraying.
Important! Excessive moisture will cause seedlings to rot.Fertilizing of young shoots is carried out with the help of soluble complex fertilizers for seedlings, with a frequency of once every two weeks.
Temperature conditions
Containers with seedlings should be stored in a room at a temperature not lower than + 15 ° C. Shoots appear about a week after sowing, but do not forget to ensure that the room did not have a temperature drop and drafts.
Sowing seeds in open ground
Calendula - is a hardy plant that is resistant to low temperatures. It is not afraid of frosts (up to -5 ° C), and feels equally good both in the garden and in the garden.
Did you know? Calendula was loved by Marguerite Valois, Queen of France, and her rooms were often decorated with bouquets of these delicate flowers. The Queen of Navarre admired the unpretentious beauty of the calendula, describing it in her writings. A statue of Margarita with a bouquet of calendula in her hands adorns the Luxembourg Garden in Paris.
Optimal sowing time
As for a specific time, when it is better to plant a calendula seeds in open ground, then you can determine it yourself, based on personal convenience.
When spring planting seeds are sown in April, and in the autumn - in the winter, in October. In the spring, you can check the readiness of the soil for planting in the following way: hold a lump of earth in your palm and drop it from a meter height. If someone is easily crumbled, you can start landing.
Choosing a place to plant
The best place for calendula will be sunny or slightly shaded areas with fertile, drained soil. In full shade, the stems of the plant are strongly drawn out, and the flowers become smaller. In addition, the chosen location should be protected from the winds, which can break thin stems.
Soil: preparation and care
The soil is prepared in autumn: humus is introduced (half a bucket per m²) and 20 g of superphosphate and potassium chloride each. In the spring, just before planting, urea is additionally added (30 g / m²).
You can replace urea with fertilizer from the store, or dilute the humus with superphosphate and potassium sulfate (a tablespoon). After applying the fertilizer, they dig up the ground and level the rake.
Scheme and depth of landing
Before planting calendula seeds, determine the shape of the planting.
For the landing, they make furrows two centimeters deep. Between rows and plants leave a distance of about 40 cm for a single planting.
Calendula is planted by sowing seeds into the soil by three to four centimeters. Too deep planting can reduce seed germination.
For medicinal planting, the scheme is different: 10 cm between plants and 40 cm between rows.
Calendula care
Care for the nails is no more difficult than for other plants. Regular attention and the implementation of all the necessary plant procedures will help to decorate your garden and vegetable garden with small "suns".
Interesting! The Welshs determined the weather as the marigolds: if the marigolds did not fully open in the morning, it would be overcast, perhaps heavy rain, and in the sea it foreshadowed a storm.
Watering: all the nuances
Calendula - a plant that loves moisture very much, so she needs regular watering. But there are some nuances: freshly planted marigold seedlings are watered three to four times a week, but adult plants need only watering during the drought period.
Under normal conditions, with normal rainfall, you can water twice a week. Simultaneously with irrigation, it is necessary to loosen the soil and remove weeds.
Fertilizer and dressing
Feed calendula need every 12-14 days. Commonly used complex fertilizers: Ammophos (20-30 g / m²) or Nitrophoska (70-80 g / m²), but you should not get involved in them, since their frequent use can lead to plant diseases.
If you use nitrogen fertilizers, also be careful: because of the excess of this substance, the inflorescences become small and pale.
Removal of flowering inflorescences
For greater pomp and flowering pinch calendula. Removing faded inflorescences will prolong the flowering of calendula until the end of the season; in addition, fresh inflorescences will be larger and brighter. Do not rush to throw away the removed parts, they will be useful as a medicinal composition.
Collecting and storing seeds
A month after the emergence of seedlings calendula begins to bloom. Collect inflorescences with seeds in dry weather, removing the extreme boxes, which are in a horizontal position.
If the seeds are not collected in August, they will sift themselves. Flowers with boxes dried to the state of decay. Seeds are carefully picked, folded into fabric bags and stored in a dry, dark, ventilated and warm place.
Attention! Calendula flowers in bronchial asthma is extremely undesirable - pollen can provoke an allergic reaction and aggravate the state of health.
The combination of calendula with other plants
The height of calendula (up to 60 cm) allows you to plant it as a living curb or a mini fence, bordering lower plants. It will look good next to the evergreen ornamental shrubs.
The color scheme of calendula (from cream to golden) will decorate the Moorish lawn and alpine slide. The plant is able to make a bright sunny touch in planting with dark flowers: blue, blueberry-purple, burgundy, and short-growing calendula will look beautifully from pots, hanging baskets and pots.
Successful, and most importantly will be useful planting in the garden next to the vegetable and herbaceous crops. Calendula works as an antiseptic for the soil in which it grows.
It disinfects the soil from diseases (root rot) and parasites. The plant is suitable in the fight against aphids, raspberry flies, ants and cabbage butterflies. It boosts immunity in other plants.
Pests and diseases of calendula: prevention and treatment
Calendula is rarely sick, and its most common diseases are black spot and powdery mildew. The first affects the leaves with black or dark brown spots, and calendula ceases to develop from the white plaque throughout the above-ground part of the plant left by powdery mildew and eventually dies.
If you notice a defeat late and you need to take urgent measures, use fungicides: Fundazin, Topsin, Topaz.
Although it is best not to heal, but to take preventive measures — remove weeds in a timely manner, clean the soil in the fall, do not overfeed with nitrogen and observe crop rotation.
You should not grow in one place the same culture for more than three years. A diseased plant that cannot be helped needs to be removed and burned.
Pest marigold scares, the exception is aphid. Her calendula, as if collecting for themselves the benefit of neighbors. To free the plant from the parasite, try spraying it with Karbofos, Aktellik or Antitlin.
In the Middle Ages, Calendula was eaten - it served as a filling for pies, it was added to salads and cereals, main dishes, and puddings were prepared.
Most of all, it was valued as a seasoning, since it was the calendula that replaced saffron, which is still not cheap, and at that time, brought from overseas, it was available only to very rich people.
For medicinal purposes, Calendula was used by such luminaries of ancient medicine as Galen, Avicenna, Amirdovlat, Amasiats and herbalist Kulpeper.
