When are my marigolds going to bloom?

I planted them as seeds right after the first frost of this year and they still don't have any buds or anything. They are quite tall, but they don't have any signs of blooming anytime soon.

When are my marigolds going to bloom?
I can think of something that would deter flower production. Did you plant seed from a seed packet you purchased from the local garden center? Or did you collect seed from last years flowers and attempt to sow them this spring? If you did infact use collected seeds, they were more than likely from a F1 hybrid generation. Most marigolds are F1 hybrids. This means that you harvested seeds from this F1 and now you are attempting to grow flowers from what are "now" F2 hybrid seeds. This isn't gonna happen! F2's will always revert back to the characteristics of one of the "parent" plants, from this F1 hybridized crossing. F2 seeds will never produce true to their form. One of the parent plants may have had the desired trait of growing "tall" but with few flowers. The other parent may have produced an abdundance of flowers. When you cross these two to make the F1 hybrid you will get a flowering plant that "grows tall" and produces "many flowers". Both desired traits are all found in one plant. Hope this explains it well enough for you to understand... Here is a paragraph taken from the University Of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, telling a little bit about this. Hope this anwers your question. And if you sowed seed from a store bought packet, well then, Iam totally wrong, and you can disregard my answer!...lol





Gardeners often want to save seeds. While this works just fine with an inbred line, it is an unrewarding experience with hybrids. If seeds are saved from a hybrid plant, segregation of the genes occurs in the F2 generation. Instead of being remarkably uniform, the most salient characteristic of hybrids, the population will vary wildly between the two extremes used to create the hybrid.





**Billy Ray**
Reply:Your welcome! And thanks to "you" for choosing a best answer. Report It

Reply:Marigolds should start blooming within two months of planting from seed. They are an easy plant, and seldom have disease problems. Sometimes too much nitrogen will cause leaf growth with no flower production. The nitrogen could come from your lawn runoff. Most lawn fertilizer is high nitrogen. I can't think of anything else that would deter flower formation.
Reply:Hello. I am a Certified Master Gardener. In college, Horticulture was my major. I have been employed in a plant nursery, and I do volunteer work with plants at my local University Botanic Gardens.





Apply Osmocote granular fertilizer to the Marigolds. Also, prune or pinch off an inch of growth from each plant.





I sincerely hope this helps you and your Tagates.





PAMELA J.
Reply:Are they in full sun (at least 5-6 hours of direct sun a day), and have you fertilized with something with high nitrogen?





Marigolds need good sun to bloom, and flowering on all plants given too much N is delayed.