FLIMBY: Calendulas do double duty

This is another installment in our Flowers in My Back Yard series, dedicated to blooming plants.

Each April, my garden is ringed with a vibrant border of flowers in shades of orange and yellow. Bees and the very first butterflies gravitate to their daisy-like blooms.

And sometimes, when I want to spice up a salad or add a splash of gold to a plate, I harvest those petals, too. Why not? They’re edible.

Calendulas are the spring annual that keeps on giving. I never planted them in my community garden plot. They just showed up one spring as volunteers. I transplanted them to the edges of my plot to form an informal border.

Ten years later, they keep coming back – self-sowing again and again. Their blooms vary in shade from pale sunlight yellow to vibrant orange – favorite colors for butterflies. Their open, flat flowers offer an easy landing place (another must for butterfly plants).

Bees obviously love calendulas as well. As a border, these brightly colored flowers signal bees to forage over here – making calendulas an ideal companion plant for veggie gardens. After the calendulas, the pollinators may want to visit the strawberries and veggies in the plot that need their attention, too.

Another plus for calendulas: The blooms have long enough stems to cut for bouquets. At the same time, the plant stays relatively short (under 1 foot) and compact; it doesn’t spread too much. (If it grows gigantic, it’s getting too much water.)

And those pretty petals are edible, making calendulas a versatile addition to a cottage flower garden as well as veggie bed border.

Calendula petals have a slightly spicy taste, similar to cloves, and add mild fragrance as well as flavor. That makes them a surprising and colorful addition to salads or scattered as edible decoration on desserts, entrees or cheese plates.

(A word of warning: Don’t eat flowers exposed to pesticides, including systemic fertilizers; those chemicals get in the petals, too.)

Calendulas (Calendula officinalis) are native to Southern Europe and Northern Africa, wrapping around both sides of the Mediterranean. That makes them an ideal choice for Sacramento’s Mediterranean climate. They act like a native plant.

More positives: Calendulas are super easy to grow; that’s how they can volunteer every year. (They’re kind of a domesticated wildflower.) They definitely sprout easily from seed, but also grow quickly from transplants. They can take colder temperatures at night while flourishing in spring sun.

As our afternoons heat up, calendulas prefer some afternoon shade. They also thrive in containers; their European nickname is “pot marigold.”

Once established (and well rooted), calendulas are naturally drought-tolerant. They prefer well-drained soil and like to dry out almost completely before watering. Weekly or twice monthly irrigation is enough; weekly water will produce more blooms.

If spent flowers are trimmed off, calendulas will continue to bloom for several weeks, with a flower season stretching from April to June.

Calendulas are almost foolproof. The key: Don’t over-feed or over-water. Too much fertilizer and water leads to leggy plants with lots of foliage but few flowers. They prefer to be mostly left alone.

Except who can ignore those bright blooms? They’re not only pretty, they look good enough to eat.