The July Garden
I think it was Roald Dahl who said that if he had his way he would remove January from the calendar and have an extra July instead. I don’t agree. One of the best things about every month is that there is only one of them in the year with all their attendant highs and lows. Whatever the weather, the mood, the state of the garden, it is transitory. There is a natural ebb and flow to every year and I embrace that.
One of the great delights of the garden in July is calendula officinalis (know as Nobody’s flower in Wiltshire apparently). The vivid yellow, orange or burnished gold hues blend beautifully with the purples of lavender, salvia, agastache and the purple clematis I planted to cover next door’s (rather ugly) fence and whose name I can never remember. I sowed a few last year as companion plants for my tomatoes and they self-seeded right next to the Hypericum calycinum (Rose of Sharon) and are exactly the same colour. A happy accident. It’s no surprise that its sunshine colour is associated with abundance; they will pop up anywhere where the soil is fertile and free-draining.
Calendula officinalis or pot marigold is native to the mediterranean, south Asia, and much of Europe. It isn’t picky about full sun or part shade and more than earns its place in the garden. An easy starter plant to grow with children, its blooms open to bask in the sun, allowing you to tell the time of day based on how open or closed they are.
A simple flower with a sunshiny disposition calendula does a lot of heavy lifting in my garden.
• As an edible the petals have a slightly bitter/peppery flavour and can be added to soups, salads and even sandwiches.
• As a companion plant it attracts pollinators and keeps the bugs away particularly from brassicas and tomatoes.
• As a cutting flower it’s easy to sow, easy to grow and a prolific self-seeder. There’s often a small jam jar with a bunch of calendula on the kitchen windowsill in the summer.
• As a dye plant it produces natural yellows, golds and khaki-greens. There’s plenty of advice online about dying cloth or fibres and it would make a good way to while away an afternoon in the summer holidays with children or grandchildren.
• Medicinally it has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiviral and antioxidant properties. Quite the superhero of the natural medicine cabinet, calendula has long been used to help upset stomachs, skin issues, and skin inflammation and sometimes even applied to the eyes to treat conjunctivitis. But my favourite way to harness its medicinal properties is to make a calendula salve. Why not give it a go?
Cally’s Calendula salve
You will need a sterilised kilner jar (at least 200ml) and enough calendula flowers to fill it ¾ full along with enough olive oil to fill the jar.
Harvest the calendula flowers.
Dry them for 5 days in a warm place, ensuring they are completely dry
Fill the jar ¾ full of the flower petals
Pour the oil into the jar, making sure all the flowers are submerged.
Seal the jar tightly.
Place the jar in a sunny spot on the windowsill or in your greenhouse (as long as it’s warm) for at least 3 weeks, shaking the jar regularly. Strain the oil using a sieve.
Then take 12 grams of beeswax per 100 ml of oil
Heat the calendula oil using a double boiler (bain-marie).
Add the beeswax and gently warm the oil to melt the wax.
Stir to thoroughly combine the oil and beeswax.
Pour into small, sterilised jars. Seal and cool.
The salve should keep for up to 12 months and is good for healing and soothing scratches, scrapes, rashes, rough skin and sunburn.
There’s plenty of blooms to harvest in the cutting patch in July but the most versatile of these (probably) is calendula officinalis.