The glorious story of marigolds begins in Mexico and Guatemala, where the Aztecs prized
them for their medicinal properties and used them in religious ceremonies.
In the 16th century, Spaniards took marigolds to Europe and the seeds quickly spread throughout
the continent. They took hold in gardens — and in Spanish churches, where they were favorites
for adorning the altar of the Virgin Mary. Thus they became known as “Mary’s Gold”
— which became “marigold.”
Marigolds’ family name, Tagetes, comes from the word “Tages,” the Etruscan prophet
said to be the child of Genius and the grandson of Jupiter. As the myth goes, this wise child
sprang up from freshly plowed soil.
Marigolds are incredibly easy-going flowers, and they’ve been embraced worldwide for
their beauty and usefulness.
By the time it made its way to Britain in the 1600s, the African marigold, Tagetes erecta,
had naturalized along the North African coast; despite its origins in the Americas, this
is most likely how the flower got its name. The British also called the short and bushy
French marigolds “Rose Of the Indies.”
In the 19th century, American gardens began blooming with marigolds. In his 1851 book,
“The Flower Garden,” Joseph Breck praised the French marigold as “one of the old-fashioned
flowers,” and described the colors of the African marigold as ranging from a “pale
citron yellow to deep orange.”
In Philadelphia, French and African marigolds became a staple of W. Atlee Burpee’s seed
offerings after he founded the company in 1878. But it was his son, David, who made
it one of the most popular annuals in American gardens. Where others saw a pedestrian flower,
Burpee saw potential.
David Burpee loved flowers, but he adored marigolds. You might even say he was obsessed
with them. Following his father’s death in 1915, he took over the company and began
emphasizing the potential for hybrids. Beginning in the late 1920s, Burpee trained his sights
on breeding new marigold varieties after a root fungus nearly wiped out the sweet pea,
then America’s most popular flower. Burpee registered as a lobbyist, and with the help
of Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, an avid gardener, he campaigned to have the marigold
named as America’s official flower. (Alas, Congress chose the rose, in 1985.) Burpee
was also a bit of a celebrity. Burpee’s efforts led to the development
of such stunning varieties as “Crown of Gold” marigold in 1937 — bred from an
odorless variety imported from China — and “Red and Gold” marigold in 1939. All along,
though, Burpee dreamed of breeding a truly white version of the flower.
David Burpee was a man of modern science, but he was also a master of showmanship and
marketing. In 1954, he brought his two sides together, launching a contest that offered
$10,000 to the first home gardener who could produce “marigolds as big as Burpee’s
‘Man In the Moon’ marigolds and as white as their ‘Snowstorm’ petunias.” This
was the Holy Grail of marigold breeding.
Over the next 21 years, thousands of home gardeners answered the challenge, including
Alice Vonk of Sully, Iowa. Vonk, the daughter of Dutch immigrants, was a meticulous gardener.
She collected rainwater for her flowers, believing it was better for them than tap water. She
tied a piece of red yarn around the marigolds with the palest flowers, then let them go
to seed.
She sent some of the seeds to Burpee’s California farm for testing each year, and replanted
others. Burpee’s own plant breeders, of course, were working to create a big, white
marigold, too.
In 1974, she came close, winning $100 in the contest. Then, in 1975, Burpee declared that
the 67 year-old widow had succeeded in breeding a winner, which Burpee marketed the following
year as “Burpee’s First White Marigold.” With some of the money, Vonk bought herself
a really good Troy Bilt tiller. Well into her 70s, she maintained two gardens — a
flower garden behind the ranch house she and her husband built, and a vegetable garden
behind their old house, commuting the three blocks between them on a riding lawn mower.
Alice Vonk exuded creativity beyond the garden. She made art and wrote poems and songs. But
the garden — and the white marigold — were arguably her finest creations.
There are those who think that it was Burpee’s breeders, not Vonk, who were ultimately responsible
for the development of the white marigold.
Even if that’s true, her grandson Steve Oswalt says it wouldn’t have mattered to
his grandmother. “As far as she was concerned, she and God were responsible for producing
that seed. It was just her and God and the garden,” he said.
Crowdsourcing the elusive white marigold gave the humble flower a big boost. It gave Alice
Vonk a place in the annals of botany. And it was also the biggest thing ever to happen
in the little town of Sully. For years, a welcome sign at the edge of town proudly declared
Sully as “home of Alice Vonk, creator of the white marigold,” featuring Alice Vonk’s
hand-drawn picture of the flower.
The sign is long gone, but lucky for us, white marigolds still dazzle. There are now several
varieties of white marigold, including the beautiful Kilimanjaro. Beginning in the 1990s,
this creamy white Tagetes erecta was selected on the slopes of the famous mountain from
which it gets its name. The Dutch seed company Hem Zaden works with small, local farmers
in Tanzania to raise this variety and is constantly working to improve it.
Welcome this lovely flower into your garden!