Marigold

The Marigold is the only money producing plant. It is also the first plant the player receives for their Zen Garden.

Suburban Almanac Entry
Marigold

Marigolds give you silver and gold coins.

Special: gives coins

Marigold spends a lot of time deciding whether to spit out a silver coin or a gold one. She thinks about it, weighs the angles. She does solid research and keeps up with current publications. That's how winners stay ahead.

Cost: 50

Recharge: slow

Usage
Planting the Marigold costs 50 Sun. Every 24 seconds or so it produces either a silver ($10) or a gold ($50) coin. Gold coins are rarer than silver ones.
 * Note: These are best used in conjunction with Gold Magnets, as you will probably be too busy tending to your other plants to collect the money yourself.

Strategy
The only purpose of Marigold is to give the Player Money. Outside of this, Marigolds are near-pointless due to the slow recharge and no attacking powers. However, Marigolds are great space fillers in early levels (when playing Adventure Mode again) due to the lack of stronger Zombies and potential for hoarding excess Sun. In later levels, Marigolds take up too many valuable slots to be worthwhile (especially on the Roof). Another strategy is to plant an entire row of Marigolds with a Gold Magnet and one or two Garlic/Imitater Garlic plants in the front to divert the Zombies away, although Gargantuars, Catapult Zombies and Zombonis can get annoying sometimes.

Marigolds are commonly used in the Mini-game Last Stand for Gold Farming.

Giant Marigold
Giant Marigolds are Plants seen in the Cancelled Minigame, Big Time. It gives out more coins than the normal Marigold.

Zen Garden
A Zen Garden Marigold is a plant obtainable for the Zen Garden. Upon finishing level 5-4, the player can obtain the Watering Can from the final wave of zombies, which will subsequently grant access to the Zen Garden. Crazy Dave will then appear to introduce the Zen Garden, and he will generously donate two Marigold Sprout for your new garden. Unlike the Marigold in the game itself, the Marigold in the Zen Garden comes with a wide variety of petal colors:


 * Royal Blue
 * Royal Red
 * Purple
 * Lavender / Hawaiian Flower
 * Cyan
 * Blaze Orange
 * Magenta / Fuchsia
 * Canary Yellow
 * Pink
 * Light Green
 * White (This is the standard color for Marigolds in the main game and iPod/iPhone Zen Garden)



It should be noted that all Marigolds have gold faces. As with all Zen Garden plants, Marigolds can drop gold and silver coins periodically for the player if they are happy. More Marigolds may be bought at Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies for $2500, which restocks with three Marigolds every day. There is an exploit that allows the user to obtain more Marigolds, simply by changing the internal date function of the system (PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3). Unlike other plants in the Zen Garden, Marigolds start out as a small flower while other plants begin as an unidentifiable shoot. A fully grown Marigold can be sold for $3000 to Crazy Dave as well as earning $1000 from a Diamond which comes with a $1500 profit (excluding Fertilizers, silver coins and gold coins).



Note: The amount of Marigold sprouts that can be bought in a single day is unlimited on the DS version.

When you buy a Marigold sprout, it's easy to tell which direction it will face even before giving it Fertilizer for the first time. This direction is indicated by the stem of the sprout.

Trivia

 * Marigolds are the only plants that can be bought for the Zen Garden, with the exception being the plants that you can buy from Crazy Dave in the iPod/iPhone version for $7500 each.
 * Though Marigolds planted in the game modes all have white petals, Zen Garden Marigolds come with many different petal colors (Grey, Red, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Cyan, Purple and Magenta).
 * When a Zen Garden Marigold is highlighted by the Watering Can on the DS, it may change color instead of lighting up.
 * The color it changes to depends on the color of the Marigold, and the petals may not change entirely, leaving small patches of the original color.
 * Rather than starting as a sprout, Marigolds in the Zen Garden start as little flowers with three petals.
 * Marigold and Cactus are the only two plants referred as female.
 * You will get a Marigold in your Zen Garden before you get it in Adventure Mode.
 * In Versus Mode, the use of Marigolds is prohibited to prevent Versus Mode from being used as a tool for Gold Farming.
 * During a level's final wave, both Marigolds and killed zombies stop producing coins. Even newly-planted Marigolds will only produce three coins or so before stopping.
 * This glitch does not appear in the Android version.
 * Marigold sprouts can be seen growing in the loading bar on the title page before a Zombie head shoots out of the lawn.
 * The fact that it produces coins is a pun on its name which has the word gold in it (Marigold).
 * The Marigold actually resembles a common daisy more than a marigold.
 * This is one of the few plants that do not have any offensive or defensive abilities.
 * The Marigold is one of the plants that glow. The others are Sun-shroom, the Magnet-shroom, the Gold Magnet, the Sunflower and the Twin Sunflower.
 * If you look closely, you will see a single tooth on the Marigold's mouth. She shares this trait with the Cattail and the Starfruit.
 * The Marigold is one of the three flowers in the game, the others being Sunflower and Twin Sunflower.
 * Since Marigolds are more commonly used in Last Stand for Gold Farming, it is often forgotten that they have a slow recharge rate. This may be due to the fact that you do not need to wait for it to recharge between waves.
 * You can tell the direction a Marigold flower is going to face, during the first stage which is right after purchasing it, the sprout will face either left or right, if it faces right, the Marigold will face left when it becomes a flower and vice versa.
 * The Marigold is one of seven plants that is not available in Versus Mode. The others are Lily Pad, Tangle Kelp, Sea-shroom, Blover, Flower Pot and Plantern.
 * This plant is the only roof obtained plant that is not fast recharge.
 * If the bend in the stem faces left, the Marigold will face left (as shown with the white Marigold).
 * If the bend faces right, the Marigold will face to the right (as shown with the red Marigold).
 * Some people try to change dates on their computer there by letting them buy more Marigolds for more money (you'd already need a lot of money to buy food for your plants).
 * The sprouts in the the loading screen are Marigold sprouts.
 * Mari.jpg's a bug in the DS version where Marigolds' stems and petal colors get messed up when you are about to water them or are about to give them Chocolate. This bug is only present in the Zen Garden.