2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Tagetes (lat. Tagetes) - a flowering herbaceous annual or biennial, which is a representative of the large Asteraceae family. Another name is marigolds.
Description
Tagetes is a spectacular plant with erect, branched, pubescent and very strong ribbed stems. The height of these stems ranges from fifteen centimeters to one meter. And the dissected leaves of this plant are endowed with bizarre serrated edges.
Tagetes inflorescences look like single baskets, and these baskets can have an arbitrarily diverse shape, and their diameter can vary from two to twelve centimeters. All flowers sit on cylindrical and slightly swollen peduncles closer to the tops, while each flower is formed by tubular flowers in the center and reed flowers at the edges. And the color of the inflorescences can be either orange or yellow, or brown-brown or brown-red. Tagetes usually begins to bloom in June, and continues to bloom until the very frost. In addition, this plant boasts a very specific aroma.
In total, the genus Tagetes has about three dozen species.
Where grows
The homeland of Tagetes is considered to be South, as well as Central America.
Usage
Tagetes is very readily used in ornamental gardening - it is planted in rabatkas, in flower beds, in group plantings and along paths. And undersized varieties are ideal for mass carpet plantings, in addition, they can be planted with great success as a pot culture. Tagetes is also excellent in the cut - it really stays in the water for a very long time!
Among other things, tagetes has excellently proved itself in flower cooking - as a rule, it uses thin-leaved tagetes petals: they are added to dough, vinegar or oil to give them an original taste and a pleasant golden color. And from this amazing plant, a wonderful and very useful oil is obtained, which boasts a pronounced antimicrobial and antiseptic effect!
Growing and caring
Tagetes will grow best on light and well-moistened soils (otherwise it is undemanding to soils) with sufficient illumination. However, he also tolerates partial shade very well. And this beautiful plant will always be happy with good care! It is necessary not only to water it regularly (especially when dry weather is established), but also to pamper it from time to time with top dressing (you can dilute one or two grams of complex fertilizer in a liter of water and water the plant with the prepared composition).
Reproduction of tagetes is carried out mainly by seeds - with the onset of March, they are sown in protected ground. And already about the fourth or sixth day after sowing, the first shoots begin to appear! And after some time, the seedlings dive at a distance of 6 x 6 centimeters. By the way, the most stable seedlings can be obtained if they are grown in film greenhouses or greenhouses. As for planting seedlings in open ground, it is usually done at the end of May or at the beginning of June, observing a distance of half a meter between plants for specimens characterized by a very impressive height and twenty centimeters for low varieties. Also, when planting tagetes in the ground, it is important to try to keep earth clods around its roots.
As for various diseases and pests, Tagetes is generally very resistant to them. True, occasionally he can still be affected by root or gray rot, as well as a black leg.
