Growing Licorice Marigold: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 20, 2026
This plant is sold as Black Licorice Herb, which tells you what it tastes like and nothing about what it is. It is a marigold: Tagetes filifolia, cultivar Dropshot, bred by Hem Genetics.
A marigold you eat
The genus is the surprise. The marigolds most people know are ornamental bedding plants, and nobody puts those on a plate. This one is grown for the leaves, which are fine and thread-like rather than the usual marigold foliage, and which carry a strong licorice or anise flavour. The breeder lists it for teas, soups, salads and seafood, and notes it works well as a microgreen.
If you were trying to place the flavour, it sits near anise hyssop and tarragon, neither of which it is related to.
Small, round, and stays that way
The breeder gives a garden height and spread of eight to ten inches with a well-branched, globe-shaped habit. That makes it one of the few herbs here that stays inside its square: no sprawl, no flopping, no shading its neighbours. It suits a front row, a container, or the edge of a bed where you will brush against it.
Our spacing places two per square foot, and it produces from spring through fall from a direct sowing once frost has passed.
Not the same as our other marigolds
Worth separating from the two marigolds already in this dataset. The ornamental marigold is a different Tagetes grown for flowers, and desert marigold is Baileya, not a Tagetes at all despite the name.
Source: Hem Genetics, Dropshot (Tagetes filifolia).
Companion planting guide for Licorice Marigold · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 3-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Direct sow: Direct-sow outside. Licorice Marigold doesn't transplant well, or doesn't need the extra time indoors.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Licorice Marigold plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 2 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 6-10 in.
Where to buy licorice marigold seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing licorice marigold" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Licorice Marigold: A culinary marigold under ten inches tall with feathery leaves that taste of anise, sold under a name that mentions neither.
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