The Clever Way To Get Endless Blooms Out Of Your Store-Bought Marigold Plant

Ever wish you could transform a humble store-bought marigold plant (Tagetes) into a non-stop bloom factory? Marigolds are typically grown as annuals, which means you'll need to replant them each year — and buy new seeds or seedlings every year as well. But there is one clever way to get endless blooms out of a single store-bought marigold plant, and it's really simple to do. Each marigold flower is actually full of seeds, which you can replant in your garden to turn one bloom into tons of plants.

The way to do this is to collect seeds from dried flowers and replant them in the soil. That way, you don't need to keep buying marigold plants or seed packets from the store. This clever and simple trick can turn today's bloom into tomorrow's flower beds, and it works as long as the soil temperature is at 65 degrees Fahrenheit or higher (just like store-bought seed packets). Once you've placed these seeds in the ground, growing marigolds is easy if you avoid common mistakes, like not keeping the soil moist enough during germination. 

And the best part is that it doesn't require you to cut any fresh blooms. This hack works best when done with flowers that are past their prime, which you should actually deadhead anyway to preserve the existing flowers and avoid the plant wasting energy on dying flowers. But instead of tossing the dead flowers away, add this extra step to harvest some seeds.

To harvest a marigold flower for its seeds, you need to keep a close watch on your plant. You have to wait until a flower is past its prime, and leave it on the plant until it completely dries out. You'll notice that after a flower blooms, the petals begin to wilt and brown. Wait until this process is complete and the petals are fully dry before plucking the flower. If you pick a flower too early, the seeds will still be too moist and won't germinate.

Once you've found a dried flower to use, simply snap it off from the stem. You can use your hands, scissors, or pruners to cut right below the flower. Marigolds are actually one of the flowering plants that you should always deadhead for maximum blooms, so the harvesting of seeds is just an extra step on top of this routine maintenance task.

To extract the seeds from the flower, you can just use your fingers. The seeds are at the bottom of the petals, where they meet the stem. Simply pull the petals from the flower, and then remove the dried petals from the seeds. The seeds are long and thin, with a black part and some white and yellow at the top. You can either plant these seeds in the ground right away or set them aside to plant later. For the latter, just make sure to give the seeds a few days to dry on a paper towel before putting them in a seed box or bag. Now, you'll be able to grow flourishing marigold flowers from seeds you've harvested yourself.