Sunday, 23 August 2009

Today's Flowers #54

French Marigolds (Tagetes patula) are brightly coloured daisy-like annuals and are easy to grow. They have a long flowering period and are useful in the garden for attracting insects and as companion plants for vegetables. They are believed to repel white fly and secretions from their roots kill nematodes in the soil. Yellow dye from the flowers is used to colour foods and textiles. In Asia leaf and flower extracts are used to stop nosebleeds.
'Marigold' derives from 'Mary's Gold' and the plant is associated with the Virgin Mary. Tagetes were brought to England by Huguenot refugees. They fled France after the St Bartholomew massacre of 1572 when tens of thousands of French protestants were murdered by Catholic mobs influenced by the French queen Catherine de Medici.



The name 'Pansy' comes from the French 'pensee' (can't place the acute accent on the first 'e') meaning 'thought' as the flower is considered to resemble a human face.


Thank you to Luiz Santillo Jr for creating this meme and for hosting it with Denise Gullickson, Laerte Pupo and Valkyrien.
To see more beautiful flowers please click here
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12 comments:

  1. i beati23 August 2009 at 17:38

    perk up material for any garden

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  2. Marju23 August 2009 at 18:08

    Wonderful, wonderful colored flowers!

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  3. Drahdrah23 August 2009 at 18:35

    What beautiful flowers (and photos). I especially like the first one. Happy Sunday !

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  4. jabblog23 August 2009 at 18:38

    Thank you i beati - tagetes are such cheerful flowers and I just love pansies.
    Marju and Drahdrah- thank you both :-)

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  5. Chris23 August 2009 at 22:21

    The marigolds remind me of my Mum. My daughters and I used to help her plant out about 200 plants in her front garden every spring. Everyone stopped to admire the finished display. She's no longer with us but ypur photos made me smile.

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  6. VALKYRIEN23 August 2009 at 22:51

    Tagetes is a sweet flower, and does wonderful work keeping the bugs away from other flowers! I always plant them on my balcony! Sometimes together with pansies! :)

    Thank you for sharing!

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  7. DeniseinVA24 August 2009 at 00:14

    How beautiful, all of them are delightful flowers. Thank you for sharing and have a great week.

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  8. Cathy24 August 2009 at 02:29

    so lovely--we used to plant marigolds around our vegetable garden to ward off bugs.

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  9. Gunilla24 August 2009 at 08:18

    beautiful flowers.
    Thanks for sharing.

    Gunilla in Sweden

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  10. jabblog24 August 2009 at 12:25

    Thank you Chris - so many memories are wrapped in flowers :-)
    Valkyrien - I'm glad you like tagetes as much as I do (and pansies) :-)
    Denise, thank you - the week ahead looks promising
    Cathy - so much better to use Nature to control Nature than chemicals isn't it?
    Gunilla, thank you.

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  11. Arija24 August 2009 at 13:43

    I love the last Pansy, I love that warm brick red.

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  12. jabblog24 August 2009 at 17:11

    Thank you Arija - these pansies have bloomed and bloomed all summer long :-)

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