Calendula

Meet calendula, the winter flower with a second job in the kitchen. Its daisy-like heads in orange and yellow open from November, and the petals have been used for centuries as a dye, a skin salve and a garnish. UF/IFAS calls it one of the most reliable cool-season annuals, which is exactly what a Dubai winter asks of a flower.

It is the friendliest kind of bedding plant: dense and rounded, about 30–45 cm tall, happy in a pot, a mass planting or the front of a vegetable bed. UF/IFAS even suggests planting it in the winter vegetable garden, a spot of colour next to the cabbages.

In Dubai the name needs a footnote. Here 'marigold' almost always means Tagetes, the bedding flower Dubai Municipality plants every autumn. Calendula, the pot marigold, is a different plant, a quieter one that you grow for yourself rather than see on the roundabouts.

Calendula officinalis is an aromatic annual in the daisy family, and its flowers are single or double in yellow or orange. UF/IFAS describes a dense, rounded plant 1 to 1.5 feet (30–45 cm) tall and wide that works as an annual groundcover, in containers or beneath a small tree. The flowers attract butterflies and last well when cut, and the petals are edible, though UF/IFAS suggests tasting one first because some people find it bitter.

Its Dubai calendar follows the cool season. Acacia's Dubai garden calendar lists calendula among the flowers to plant in October and again in January, when it is 'hitting its stride', and a Gulf News guide to annuals puts calendula and pansy together under moist and cool conditions. It is not named in the Dubai Municipality seasonal flower lists we found, so it is mainly a home-garden plant. NC State says it does not do well in hot summer weather, and in Dubai it fades as April's mean maximum of 33.7 °C gives way to May's 38.2 °C.

Care is simple. Calendula likes full sun or partial shade, well-drained soil and about 30–45 cm between plants. Sandy soil gives it the drainage it wants, but the nutrients wash out of sand quickly (The National), so mix compost into the bed. Deadhead spent flowers, as UF/IFAS and RHS both advise, to keep new blooms coming; left alone it sets seed and self-sows. UF/IFAS notes that nursery transplants can be hard to find, so seed is the usual way to start.