STYLE: GARDENS : Good as Gold

Even for Californians--and especially for gardening Californians--there comes a time in the dead of winter when we long for a blast of color: something fiery hot to warm a garden’s chilly bones. Just as naked trees rattle overhead, the Mexican marigold ( Tagetes lemmonii ) springs to life, splashing the landscape with the spirit of spring. Tough, aromatic, drought-resistant, it grows in shaggy heaps up to several feet tall, with orange blooms that double as cut flowers and feathery, citrus-scented leaves throughout the year.

In Ruth Borun’s West Los Angeles garden, this feisty showoff proves just the thing to liven up a barren wall. Underplanted with alyssum, blue fescue and euphorbia, it adds what Borun calls “a wild look in a civilized framework” while demanding little in the way of care. Garden designer Christine Rosmini installed the marigold for Borun, who loves its off-season exuberance and explosive form. “I get so tired of neat, neat, neat,” she says. “A little chaos is exciting.”

Not to mention how it blows away the winter blues.