7 Incredible Ways to Use Calendula Flowers
Calendula is a really well-known flower, and we grow it for so many different reasons. First off, it’s really easy to grow, and you can either grow it as a single plant or in a big row or clump like this. It blooms all year long in certain climates, including mine, because it is quite temperate here. There are also tons of varieties that you can choose. This one here that I have in the Birdies bed, this is a type called Resina. It’s a medicinal calendula variety; it has higher resin levels, hence the name, and it has small yellow and orange flowers. The other variety that I have growing down in the garden is called Erfurt Orange Farbig, and all that means is it’s from Erfurt in Germany and it’s an orange color. That’s also a medicinal variety and is much, much larger. But what they all have in common, all of the calendulas, is that there are tons of ways that you can use them. So, I’m going to go through seven of those top ways to use calendula and hopefully give you some inspiration.
1. Companion Planting in the Garden
The main way that home growers of calendula can use this flowering plant is actually out here in the garden as a companion plant. A companion plant is a plant that can help another plant in some way. The way that calendula works is that it is very attractive to not just pollinators like hoverflies, bees, and butterflies, but also pests that might target your vegetables. So, you can use this plant to lure them away as a sacrificial plant in a way, but also to boost the number of pollinators in your garden.
2. Edible Flowers and Natural Colorants
Another way that we can use calendula flowers is as an edible flower. You don’t eat the green bits; they’re a bit too bitter. But you can pull the petals off and use them in fancy salads and drinks. You can even puree the petals up and use them as a natural food colorant, so you can naturally color cakes and cookies and all sorts of things a really lovely sunny color.
3. Herbal Medicine
Calendula is also used in herbal medicine and for a few different reasons. Mainly, it’s a skin cleanser and skin healer, so if you have wounds, it can help cleanse them and speed up the healing. But it’s also used for digestive complaints and also it helps with period pain as well.
4. Daily Skin Care
Because calendula is so good at detoxifying and cleansing and healing, and also because it’s very gentle, we can use it in daily skin care. This is calendula-infused oil and a calendula salve. Calendula is great for skin care, which means that if you grow it in your garden, you can harvest it, dry it, and use it to make your own creams, lotions, salves, and balms—you name it.
5. Soap Making
We can also use calendula flowers in soap making. These two bars are from a batch of calendula soap. I have another one here; this is a bar of soap that I make for my business and I sell to customers. We mainly use calendula in soap making as a decoration, so the petals on the front of these, and as a natural colorant. But they do actually hold up their lovely color within the soap bars themselves. So, this is the only flower that I use within soap bars.
6. Natural Dye for Fibers and Textiles
The natural color possibilities don’t end with just soap making because we can use these beautiful orange and yellow flowers to naturally dye fibers and textiles, so things like wool and linen, organic cotton, things like this. In that way, you can bring your flowers and your garden into what you wear on a daily basis. It’s also a really fun and creative craft and the colors are beautiful—just a really sunny, beautiful yellow in a lot of cases.
7. Ornamental Use
Calendula flowers are just so cheerful and beautiful that having them in your garden as an ornamental is useful enough in itself. For me, especially in autumn and even in winter, looking out the window and seeing just a splash of yellow or orange really cheers me up. I hope that you’ve got some inspiration for how to use your calendula, even if it is just for looking out in the garden.