Mom always planted marigolds along the edges of her vegetable gardens. She said they kept pests away. I can see that, because the marigold isn’t the most wonderfully-scented flower.

Despite their somewhat pungent odour (to me, anyways), these flowers make up for their unpleasant scent with their rich orange, gold, and maroon colours, and are seen routinely in beds and planters in this area because of their hardiness.

Many of our Main Street planters have marigolds in them so I snapped my feature photo during a recent cool down walk.

I read on the Burpees web site that the marigold was, at one time, in the race to become the national flower of the USA, but in the end, the rose won out. I chose my title for this post from Burpee’s description of the marigold. I thought to myself, “those are great characteristics for flowers and people alike!”

The Bounty French Marigold in my feature photo didn’t require a lot of post processing. I adjusted the colour depth a bit and added some vignette to enhance the blossom.

“As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them.”

Henry Ward Beecher