Next Year's Blooms

• Save your marigold seeds to plant your next batch of marigolds. Start African marigolds in mid-March, as they require nine weeks to get big enough to transplant; wait to plant your French and gem marigolds until early April, as they only require five to six weeks to grow sufficiently, according to the University of Minnesota Extension.
  
  To save your own seed from your marigold plants, collect the dead flower heads and place them in a cool, dry place until the following growing season. You can shake or break apart the heads to separate out the seeds. Hybrid flowers will not produce true to the parent plants, according to the North Dakota State University Extension. Triploid cultivars are sterile, so you shouldn't try to save seed from these marigolds.
  
  

Bird Food

• You can collect marigold seeds and save them to provide winter food for birds, or you can leave the heads intact on your plants and allow the birds to gather their own dinner. If you don't deadhead your marigolds, the downside to leaving the expired flowers on the plants is that the plants will fail to produce as many new blooms, but if the end of the growing season is approaching, you won't lose many potential blossoms.
  
  

Seed Paper

• Marigold seeds can be incorporated into seed paper. Seed paper has viable seeds embedded within the fibers. The paper can be made professionally, in a form that works in your computer's printer, or made informally as a home craft project. After using the paper for correspondence, invitations or other purposes, you can shred the sheets into pieces, mix them into the soil, and await your flowers. The paper degrades to expose the seed, allowing your marigolds to germinate.
  
  

A Special Gift

• Make a gift of some of your seeds to inspire a new gardener, or give them as part of a gift for a birthday or holiday. Create a gardening gift basket by filling a planter with hand tools, a small bag of soil and a homemade packet of marigold seed, along with planting instructions. Marigolds perform well through the heat and full sun of summer, and marigolds planted in a flowerbed will readily reseed themselves, saving the recipient some of the work the following year.