Calendula, Alpha

Alpha calendula produces bright orange, fully double flowers with incredibly high resin content—perfect for making healing salves and skin creams. These cheerful blooms are also edible, adding golden color and a slightly peppery flavor to salads.

Calendula: Calendula (Pot Marigold) is a prolific annual known for its nonstop, sunshine-gold blooms that serve triple duty as a powerful medicinal herb, edible garnish, and pollinator magnet. These cheerful flowers possess demonstrated skin-healing properties, utilized for centuries in salves and teas. The edible, buttery petals—often called "poor man's saffron"—add subtle flavor and natural golden color to rice dishes and salads. With a continuous blooming habit from late spring through hard frost and minimal maintenance requirements, calendula is an essential, easy-to-grow addition to any garden.

• Growing Tips: Transplant 2-4 weeks before last frost, spacing 12 inches apart; deadhead regularly to maintain continuous production.

• Sun Requirements: Full sun to partial shade; tolerates more shade than most flowering annuals while maintaining good bloom production.

• Preferred Soil: Average, well-drained soil; tolerates poor soil, moderate drought, and thrives in lean or sandy conditions.

• Harvest Details: Harvest fully open flowers on dry mornings for fresh or dried use; both the petals and whole flowers possess medicinal and edible properties; harvest continuously to prolong blooming season.