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Health & Fitness

Ever Heard of 'Paigle?' It Can Be Sheer Gold in North Fork Gardens

Sometimes the most interesting stuff in our garden gets there on its own.

Some of the best things in life are unplanned. The same is true when it comes to gardening. Come spring, every flower bed in our yard is overrun with marsh marigolds (also known as Caltha palustris or Kingcup, meadow bright, May Blob,  swamp lily, butter-flower, water dragon, lizard's tail, buttercup, crowfoot,  cowslip and yes, paigle). These wildflowers are moisture lovers. Though it's pouring down rain all over the North Fork this week, it still makes me wonder why on earth this lowly wildflower ever chose to call my relatively dry garden "home." But they did and I'm grateful.

The name marigold goes back to the Anglo Saxon [mari + gold].  During medieval times, pilgrims used bouquets of the flower as an offering to honor the Virgin Mary at Easter. Even Shakespeare liked ‘em:  “Winking Marybuds begin/ To open their golden eyes [Cymbeline, ii. 3]. Personally, I’m especially fond of them because they keep the “clouds of golden daffodils”  company [Wordsworth] that I intentionally planted. Together the wild and the tame set the beds all around the house alight with a rich and vibrant yellow every spring.

That’s the stuff of poetry. Besides their waxy, round petals, the marsh marigold's  foliage is interesting in its own right.  It has a distinctive sheen and many of the leaves are ribbed down the center in a striking deep purple.  The low, dense clumps of leaves hang on in the bare spots until the official perennials get going enough to fill in the muddy gaps, then quietly disappear.  If you don't have them in your garden, they can be transplanted. Believe me, they'll spread.  I suppose purists would tell you to weed 'em out.   o me, spring wouldn't be spring without them.

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