NAME: Desert Marigold
OTHER COMMON NAMES: Showy Desert Marigold / Wild Marigold / Desert Baileya / Paper Daisy
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Baileya Multiradiata syn. Baileya Australis / Baileya Multiradiata Thurberi / Baileya Multiradiata Nudicaulis / Baileya Thurberi
COLOR: Yellow
PLANT SEEDS: Fall / Cold stratify / Outdoors after frost / Indoors weeks before last frost
BLOOM TIME: All Season, From Spring - Fall
HARDINESS ZONE: 3 - 9
PLANT HEIGHT: 18 - 24"
PLANT SPACING: 6 - 9"
LIGHT REQUIREMENTS: Sun
SOIL & WATER PREFERENCES: Average - Dry
OTHER: The Desert Marigold is an heirloom flower that is native to the Southwest US & Mexico. These desert plants love sun & heat, & are completely at home in soil that is rocky, sandy, heavy clay, nutritionally poor, or dry. Their brightly colored yellow petals & can bring a lot of cheer to a dusty dry landscape, or are perfect for any bed, border, rock garden, or container.
This Marigold¡¯s fuzzy silvery foliage grows in a neat clumping / mounding habit with its large 1 ¨C 2¡± flowers held on stalks above. Its bright yellow blooms can begin to open as early as March, continuing all season long into the fall. The nectar riche blossoms will attract bees & butterflies to your garden, & birds will flock to nibble the seeds in the winter months. The Desert Marigold is also a larval host for the Desert Marigold Moth. Their double-petaled ¡°paper daisy¡± flowers are long-lasting on the plants, as fresh cut flowers for a vase, or dried for arrangements.
I did read that the Desert Marigold is likely poisonous to sheep, although supposedly horses & cattle are not affected. This plant does have traditional medicinal uses for humans.