Last year I found Tagetes erecta sprouting in different spots in my garden: in a flower bed circling a palm tree as well as many little ones popping up in the lawn. I'm assuming birds presented a few seeds to my yard, because although I've known about Marigolds for many years, I'd just never thought about them one way or the other. They just seemed to be a ho-hum plant to me and I'd never grown them. Anyway, I left the ones growing in the bed around the Palm tree and decided to transplant the ones growing in the grass to another bed. They've been prolific all summer with constant blooms, and I must admit ... African Marigolds are growing on me.

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Tagetes erecta is an important companion plant that reportedly helps to repel rabbits, aphids, whiteflies, cabbage maggot, corn earworm, Mexican bean beetle, some nematodes, and plum curculio.

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"Tagetes erecta, the Mexican marigold, also called Aztec marigold, is a species of the genus Tagetes native to Mexico and Central America. Despite its being native to the Americas, it is often called African marigold. In Mexico, this plant is found in the wild in the states of San Luis Potosí, Chiapas, State of México, Puebla, Sinaloa, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz. This plant reaches heights of between 20–39 inch. The Aztecs gathered the wild plant as well as cultivating it for medicinal, ceremonial and decorative purposes. It is widely cultivated commercially with many cultivars in use as ornamental plants.

Since prehispanic times, this plant has been used for medicinal purposes. The Cherokee used it as a skin wash and for yellow dye. Scientific study shows that thiophenes, natural phytochemicals that include sulfur-containing rings, may be the active ingredients. They have been shown to kill gram negative and gram positive bacteria in vitro. This marigold may help protect certain crop plants from nematode pests when planted in fields. It is most effective against the nematode species Pratylenchus penetrans."

Taken from wikipedia's page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

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